By Toby McIntosh
The prospects for the creation of an international access to information (ATI) “indicator” appear to slipping.
The United Nations group charged with figuring out how to assess progress toward the achievement of the new UN Sustainable Development Goals has yet to include a measurement of the creation and implementation of ATI laws among several hundred planned indicators.
The Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IEAG-SDGs), the 28-member body that is scheduled to make its recommendations in several months, is still deliberating, though now virtually, according to UN officials.
The group’s major focus is how to handle about 80 so-called “grey” indicators, whose future is less certain than the 149 indicators rated positively as “green.” The 17 overall goals and 169 “targets” are designed to wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years. The final number of indictors is expected to be about 230 and there is pressure to hold down that number.
This constraint has particular salience for those concerned with how to assess Target 16.10, a two-part pledge to “ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements.”
The sole 16.10 indicator proposed by the expert group so far would measure the “number of verified cases of killing, kidnapping, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and torture of journalists, associated media personnel, trade unionists and human rights advocates in the previous 12 months.”
The expert group in November invited public comment on the grey indicators. Some 55 comments were made on 16.10, summarized in a spreadsheet by the UN Statistical Division.
Seeking Dual Indicators
Many of the commenters called for two indicators: the freedom of expression retaliation tally now included and another, on access to information.
Having two indicators has been endorsed by UNESCO, other UN bodies, the World Bank and a consortium of some 180 nongovernmental organizations represented by the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD). “This dual-indicator approach is, to varying degrees, supported by FAO, UNEP, seven African IAEG members, the USA, Canada, and others,” according to the UNESCO submission.
Two indicators are necessary to measure two parallel goals, wrote the British free expression group Article 19, explaining that “it is clear from the negotiations on the SDGs and previous development resolutions, that there was a recognizable intent by member states to ensure that both access to information and the protection of human rights need to be monitored though an individual indicator.”
UNESCO and allies support a measurement of the “adoption and implementation” of legal guarantees of public access to information, calling it “a relevant and measurable indicator.” Metadata for the indicator have been submitted to the UN Statistic Division.
“The omission of this widely supported and essential indicator from previous compilations of recommended or ‘suggested’ SDGs indicators was an unfortunate oversight,” commented GFMD.
The UNESCO summary said:
For this indicator, the operative words are ‘adoption’ and ‘implementation’. As such, it establishes: (a) whether a country (or at the global level, the number of countries) has constitutional, statutory and/or policy guarantees for public access to information; (b) the extent to which such national guarantees reflect ‘international agreements’ (e.g. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, etc.); and (c) the implementation mechanisms in place for such guarantees, including the following aspects: (i) Government efforts to publicly promote the right to information; (ii) citizens’ awareness of their legal right to information and their ability to utilise it effectively; and (iii) the capacity of public bodies to provide information upon request by the public.
This indicator will collate data from multiple sources, including National Human Rights Institutions, national and international non-governmental organisations, academic institutions and national media regulatory authorities, among others. Such information will be gathered, processed and checked by UNESCO and the World Bank. Some aspects of the indicator are already being collected. For example, data on the number of countries with freedom of information laws are currently available for at least 195 countries.
The UN Development Programme, however, has not backed the ATI indicator. Instead, UNDP supports the retaliation indicator on the table and wants to include a measure of budget transparency. It has proposed: “Percentage of government revenues, procurement and natural resource concessions that are publicly available and easily accessible in open data format.”
The UNDP and the Norwegian government has invited NGOs and other parties to a meeting on SDG indicators to be held later in January in Oslo, Norway.
Still One Indicator
Whether it is too late to add an access indicator remains an open question. UNSD officials declined to discuss its prospects, saying all decisions are up to the members.
Ironically, access to information about the expert group’s decision-making process apparently will be in short supply until the group makes its recommendations sometime before the March 8-11 meeting of the UN Statistical Commission. Group members will be exchanging views virtually, according to UNSD officials. The next group meeting will occur after the Commission meeting.
The expert group on Dec. 17 submitted a “note” on its progress, including an annex that includes only the free expression retaliation indicator, accompanied by an asterisk to denote its continuing grey status.
The December note reports: “At the time of the preparation of this report a total of 229 indicators were included in the proposal, including 149 ‘green’ and 80 ‘grey’.”
There was no mention of adding more indicators.
The note suggests that three “tiers” will be used to categorize the indicators:
Based on their level of methodological development and overall data availability, the indicators contained in the current proposal will be grouped in three different tiers:
- a first tier for which an established methodology exists and data are already widely available;
- a second tier for which a methodology has been established but for which data are not easily available; and
- a third for which an internationally agreed methodology has not yet been developed.
The note says further that the group will develop a work plan “for the establishment of adequate methodology for indicators of tier III and discuss available data sources and methodology for an improved coverage of tier II indicators.”
Not disclosed, but mentioned in the note, is a “background document that accompanies this report.” It “describes the work carried out by the IAEG-SDGs in finalizing the proposals for these indicators, including by conducting additional consultations with all stakeholders.” The expert group has pledged to work in an “open and transparency” manner. FreedomInfo.org has requested access to the background document.
Another hint that a final set of indicators will not be fully ready in March came in the provisional agenda for the Statistical Commission, released earlier in December. It says that the expert committee will report on “indicators that will require refinement, in accordance with further methodological development and discussion.” It continues, “A workplan on the latter set of indicators will also be presented in a background document to be submitted to the Commission.”
The Commission’s conclusions will be forwarded along to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the UN General Assembly. At a November briefing, John Pullinger, the UK official who chairs the Commission “confirmed that the Group is on track to develop a comprehensive set of indicators according to the schedule set with the UNGA, and that the process has been open, inclusive and transparent,” according to an IISD Reporting Services article. (For a comprehensive overview on the SDG indicator process see another IISD article, by Faye Leone, which quotes Pullinger as saying that the proposal for the UNSC in March may be “Indicators 1.0.”)
The IAEG-UN Stats Division is scheduled to brief the General Assembly on Jan. 28 on the status of the SDGs indicator process. This may be webcast.
The expert group held an intense three-day meeting, its second, in Bangkok in October, which by some accounts was rushed. Target 16.10 was barely discussed, however. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
Over 220 participants attended the meeting in Thailand, including representatives of 24 of the 28 members of the group, and close to 200 observers, including non-IAEG-SDG member states, international and regional organizations and civil society, academia and private sector, according to the official summary of the October meeting. A comment period on the green indicators was held earlier in 2015.
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