The World Bank has posted for the first time short summaries of some of the information requests it has received.
The 32 listed requests were received in April and were recently put on the Bank’s website.
Under the Bank’s new policy a summary of a request is only disclosed if the requester agrees. No names are provided and the full request letter is not made available. Whether the request was granted is not disclosed.
The trend over the past two months shows that approximately 90-95 percent of requesters grant permission to disclosure of a summary of their request, according to a World Bank staff member.
The summaries are one sentence long.
The first nine are:
– Download issues for Projects and Operations data for Afghanistan
– Information related to the Turkey Social Risk Mitigation Project P074408
– ‘Post-procurement review’ reports from 2013 on Bangladesh projects P113435 and P118708
– Status of The Gambia Emergency Agricultural Production Support Project relating to the implementation of agricultural inputs
– Indicators of trading across borders in all countries from 2006 to 2013: documents preparation, customs clearance and technical control, Ports and terminal handling and Inland transportation and handling for both export and import procedures
– Data on Poverty Gap Index, CPI and GDP per capita on Kenya for the past 30 years
– Records related to the work of former staff member who worked on Indonesia projects between 1978 and 1986
– Access to the World Bank Group Historical Chronology years 2011, 2012 and 2013
– Information related to agricultural and water management policies in Colombia from 1949 to 1975; specifically agrarian reform, agricultural technologies, irrigation and drainage projects, rural cooperatives, and water management
FreedomInfo.org is appealing a Bank decision not to disclose complete request letters. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.) Also see FreedomInfo.org report on the Bank’s denial.
When FreedomInfo’s request was first denied, in December, an official said consideration was being given to disclosing summaries of letters, minus identifying information. The new policy went to effect April 1. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
Filed under: IFTI Watch