Nigeria: In order to sensitize youths on their rights to access information from public institutions, the Lagos State chapter of the National Youth Service Corps inaugurates a new Community Development Service group — the Freedom of Information Act Club.
United Kingdom: FOIA requests are more effective than informal inquiries, according to a new paper: “Transparency at the Parish Pump: A Field Experiment to Measure the Effectiveness of Freedom of Information Requests,” by Ben Worthy, University of London – Birkbeck College, Peter John, University College London – School of Public Policy, and Matia Vannoni, University College London – School of Public Policy.
Abstract:
How effective are systems of transparency, such as Freedom of Information (FOI) requests? The ambitious aims of FOI hinge on the extent to which requests produce the desired information for the citizen or group. The question is whether such legally mandated requests work better than the more informal mechanisms that frequently precede them. Despite the high hopes of advocates, organisational routines and political values may limit legal access and public bodies may seek to minimally comply rather than behave in concordance with the spirit of the law. This paper reports a field experiment that compared FOI requests and informal asks to measure which is more effective in accessing information from English parish councils. The basic premise of statutory access is borne out. FOI requests are more effective than simple asks, though the size or pre-existing level of openness appears to make little difference to responsiveness. FOI requests are more effective at higher levels of compliance than at the minimal legal levels in comparative terms, indicating high levels of concordance once within the system. The findings bear out the stronger impact of formal requests when compared to less formal contacts.
Mexico: The National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI) issues guidelines designed to improve access to information for those with disabilities or use indigenous languages.
United States: “The American public’s ability to read the Senate Intelligence Committee’s full, scathing report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s torture program is in danger because David Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, will not call the report what it is, a federal record,” writes Lauren Harper in Unredacted, a National Security Archive blog.
Funding: Making All Voices Count announces a new funding round for civil society working on issues related to the Open Government Partnership national action plans for Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, Liberia, Philippines and Nigeria.
India: Thousands of RTI appeals lost, reports The Economic Times.
Open Contracting: The Benchmarking Public Procurement 2016 Report, a new annual World Bank Group publication, provides assessments of the public procurement systems in 77 countries on whether they are designed following an approach that promotes open contracting, with norms and rules that encourage greater contract disclosure and increased participation of different stakeholders in the public procurement processes, says a blog post.
Open Data:, The GovLab in collaboration with Omidyar Network announce 10 case studies on the impact of open data, according to a blog post by Stefaan Verhulst. Nine case studies are located here.
Open Data: The Sunlight Foundation writes about some examples “of how opening up data (especially government data) can help improve our lives.” A short list is available in both English and Spanish.
Malawi: Stephen Dakalira writes about the “long and tiresome” journey to come up with an access to information bill.
Argentina: Karina Banfi in The Nation discusses the need for an access law “because there is no effective procedure for exercising the right to information in our country.”
Right to Be Forgotten: Google says it will block access to certain disputed links from all of its domains — including the main United States one, Google.com — when people in Europe use its online search engine, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, according to a New York Times article and a Wikimedia blog post.
Right to Be Forgotten: EU’s “Right to Be Forgotten” Policy Sets Bad Precedent for Free Expression Worldwide, according to Jens-Henrik Jeppesen, director for European affairs, and Emma Llansó, director for the Free Expression Project, at the Center for Democracy and Technology.
United States: A 2014 memorandum from Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, released under the Freedom of Information Act, drew a new distinction between intelligence satellite images and the intelligence products that are derived from those images. “The subtle new distinction affects the classification and declassification of the two categories of information, and may help to facilitate the release of a growing volume of imagery-related material by US intelligence agencies,” according to Secrecy News article.
United States: MuckRock’s co-founder Michael Morisy writes about what he’s learned over six years and 20,000 FOIA requests.
Zambia: The Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) urges lawmakers to quickly table the Access to Information Bill that has been in the pipeline for many years.
Commentary: “Why Transparency Is Transformative,” writes Paul Massey, Executive Vice President, Global Lead for Social Impact at Weber Shandwick, in The Huffington Post. “The issue of transparency and its role as a catalyzing force for social progress is a focus of the second installment of our Innovation Trends Report series, Always-On Transparency. In this report, we explore the way that corporations, nonprofits, foundations and government entities are committing to an ongoing dialogue about their work and its impact–and the important lessons they are learning along the way.”
Mexico: “The country’s leaders have traveled far to reduce corruption, but more work remains,” according to an article by Vivek Ramkumar, director of International Advocacy & the Open Budget Initiative at the International Budget Partnership, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington,
Video: “Do you want your government to serve people better?” — a new video by the Open Government Partnership.
Video: A lively campaign video against pending state legislation by the Virginian Coalition for Open Government. The group’s sites also has “homemade” FOIA how-to videos on a number of topics.
Ireland: The High Court delivers judgment in Stephen Minch v Commissioner for Environmental Information & Anor, a case concerned the scope of access to environmental information, according to an analysis by FPLogue Solicitors.
United States: Muckrock describes the access rules for presidential records, beginning, “You can’t FOIA Nixon anymore, and other lessons of the Presidential Records Act.”
Ukraine: Open data would increase the Ukrainian GDP by 1-2 percent, according to a speech by Timothy Dubel, Regional eGov Advisor, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus at USAID, member of the Open Data Hackathon jury, described in a Day article.
Mali: The General Secretariat of the Government launches an information portal. The site offers a free access to all official newspapers published from 1960 to the present, according to a in MaliJet.
Open Data: “The Open Data Challenge Series provided a very successful model for bringing together a group of stakeholders around a shared challenge, by taking a sector focus,” according to an article by Jeni Tennison, a Technical Director & Deputy CEO at the Open Data Institute.
Open Banking: The Open Banking Working Group set up in September 2015 creates an Open Banking Standard.
India: “Curbs on privacy in RTI Act,” an article by Madabhushi Sridhar in The Hans.
Canada: A report released by the Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia finds that Halifax publishes far less information about contracts and tenders than other jurisdictions examined.
Pakistan: “The right to information law of Sindh, with all its proposed amendments and recommendations of civil society, has been finalised and will be presented in the assembly soon,” according to an article in The Tribune
Webinar: See video of a recent World Bank Open Learning Campus e-webinar on “Threats to Openness” with Julie McLeod, Michael Moss and David Thomas of Northumbria University.
United States: Information activist Michael Best launches a campaign to raise $10,000 so he can create a database of CIA documents, according to Next Web article.
Côte d’Ivoire: The information commission signs a partnership agreement with the NGO Action for the Protection of Human Rights (PADH) designed to improve public knowledge about the commission and its work, according to an Abidjannet article (in French). In December, a seminar on the right to information for journalists was held, the same media source reported. A session in January was held for publishers, according to another article. Also see an interview with Gooré Bi Hué, the new head of he Organization of Professional Journalists and an information commissioner.
Latin America: An online course on free expression issues and FOI is offered for judges and other judicial officers (prosecutors, attorneys, lawyers, etc.) in Latin America. The course is offered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR), with support from the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin. From Feb. 15 to March 25, judges and other judicial officers from the region can register for the course, which is in Spanish, for free. To apply, create an account at JournalismCourses.org, the platform where the course is taught. See Knight and UNESCO announcements.
Valentines Day Humor: Believe it or not, FOI-related humor for Valentine’s Day, described by Muckrock and on Twitter: #FOIAentinesDay.
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