United Nations: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he has established a task force to recommend measures to make the office of the president of the U.N. General Assembly more transparent and accountable following the arrest of former assembly president John Ashe, AP reports.
United Kingdom: The Commission on Freedom of Information has condemned as “extraordinarily inappropriate” a decision to anonymise quotes submitted for its consultation. Campaign director Maurice Frankel said in a letter to Burns: “The suggestion appears to be that although the evidence submitted to the commission may at some (perhaps much later) time become public, any evidence cited in the commission’s report itself will be unattributed and may be unavailable at the time of the report’s publication…
UNCAC: The UNCAC Coalition says the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) which will hold a meeting in St. Petersburg Nov. 2-6 is still debating the rights of civil society to participate in the UNCAC Review Mechanism. “A key obstacle to civil society participation in national and international UNCAC discussions is the way in which NGOs and other civil society members are perceived, treated and regulated in different countries.” The upcoming meeting “will have to decide about how to conduct the second cycle of reviews of the UNCAC Review Mechanism and whether it will be more open and inclusive than was the first cycle, which is in its fifth year.” The coalition developed a Pledge it is asking governments to sign. More information on the www.openupuncac.org campaign site where you can download the Pledge in four languages.
Nigeria: “Full Implementation Of FoIA Best For Fighting Corruption,” an article by Anthony Otaru, says the Federal Ministry of Justice has given assurances about implementation of the FOIA. The Director, FoIA Unit, Federal Ministry of Justice, Stella Anukam delivered a paper on ‘The Implementation of the FoIA 2011’ to senior officers at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja.
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