The Board of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) has adopted an Information Disclosure Policy, according to the minutes of the March meeting.
The Board also decided to webcast “formal Board meetings” but not “executive” sessions.
The Board accepted recommendations for a permanent disclosure policy from the Ethics and Audit Committee. (The new policy is attached as Annex XXIX in the minutes.) The Fund had been operating since 2013 under an interim disclosure policy. The adopted policy does not include an effective date.
No reactions to the policy were immediately available, but the draft policy generated strong criticisms from nongovernmental organizations for containing overly broad exemptions. (See Sept. 30, 2015, FreedomInfo.org report.)
Another criticism was that allowing 30 working days to respond to a request was “excessively long.” That time period has been retained.
A criticized provision to not disclose any Board documents “deemed confidential,” appears to have been retained.
The policy contains a fairly sweeping provision on “Deliberative Information,” saying the GCF will not provide certain information, including:
Studies, audit reports, assessments, evaluations or analyses prepared by or on behalf of the Secretariat to inform the GCF’s internal decision-making and assessment processes that include sensitive information;
The Ethics and Audit Committee also noted that the Secretariat is currently developing and documenting the ongoing Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS) processes “to ensure public access to appropriate environmental and social information in project and programme proposals and considers that, once the ESMS has been developed, consequential amendments to the related provisions in the Policy may be required.”
The Board asked the committee, once the environmental and social management system is developed, to review the relevant disclosure requirements under the disclosure policy and make appropriate recommendations.
Filed under: IFTI Watch