Posts Tagged ‘case study’
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24 December 2010
FOI NOTES: Studies, Reports, Resources
Arab Countries: A study by two University of Arizona journalism professors indicates that Arab countries are not quite ready to embrace government transparency, according to a study published in the recent issue of Government Information Quarterly. Jeannine Relly and David Cuillier examined 12 political, cultural and economic factors that have been associated with countries that […]
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13 January 2010
India’s Right to Information Act: The First Four Years
By Alasdair Roberts India’s Right to Information Act (RTIA) went into force in October 2005. It is probably the most ambitious experiment with transparency in the world. The law promises a right to government-held information to 1.2 billion citizens, most of them living in rural poverty. Its advocates say that the law could produce a […]
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7 October 2009
Saber Mas: New Report on Access to Information in Latin America
Open government advocates offer first-hand accounts of FOI promotion in Latin America Latin America’s leading open government advocates recently released a report, bringing together data from 17 countries and offering new findings on the status of freedom of information in the region. The Regional Alliance for Freedom of Expression and Information (Alianza Regional para la […]
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17 July 2009
Safeguarding the Right to Information: Report of the People’s RTI Assessment 2008 in India
A Comprehensive Look at the Implementation and Use of India’s RTI Act New Delhi, India — In the first two years of access-to-information implementation in India, about 1.6 million requests for information were made in urban areas, while an additional 400,000 applications were made in the rural villages. Taking such a large-scale access-to-information regime head on, […]
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14 April 2009
World Bank Releases Extremely Useful Reports on Access to Information Implementation
Over the past few months, the World Bank has recently published a series of extremely useful reports by experts on access to information laws. Using comparative case studies, together these reports provide an overview of the whole life cycle of access to information (ATI) legislation, from adoption to implementation and enforcement. One report examines the role of civil society groups in the formulation and adoption of access to information laws in Bulgaria, India, Mexico, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Another examines the institutional and logistical nuts-and-bolts of implementation, using Mexico as a case study, while the third report looks at models of enforcement in several countries: South Africa, Mexico, Scotland, India, and Hungary.
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27 June 2006
Two Steps Forward, One Step Backwards: The Access to Information Campaign in Argentina
By Martha Farmelo and Mariela Belski Martha Farmelo is Coordinator of the Freedom of Expression Program and Mariela Belski Coordinator of the Access to Public Information Program at the Buenos Aires-based Association for Civil Rights (www.adc.org.ar) Which is preferable, a severely flawed national access to information law, or no law at all? Freedom of information […]
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22 March 2006
Freedom of Information Laws Added to the Development Agenda
By Toby McIntosh Riding a wave of transparency, the idea of encouraging Freedom of Information (FOI) laws as part of the development agenda is gaining currency, but slowly. With research and case studies increasingly identifying transparency as a key tool in fighting corruption and facilitating development, more attention is being paid to the development of […]
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15 April 2005
Teaching Institute or Dance Bar? Putting Local Freedom of Information Legislation to Use in Argentina
By Martha Farmelo Martha Farmelo is Co-Coordinator of the Access to Information Program at the Buenos Aires-based Association for Civil Rights (www.adc.org.ar). I’ve never slept particularly well the first night in a new home, what with the excitement of the move and all the strange, new sounds. Little did I expect the sounds of the […]
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7 April 2005
FOIA Law Discloses British Farm Subsidies
For the first time the British Freedom of Information Act forced the disclosure of the amounts and recipients of UK farm subsidies on March 22, revealing over £1,000,000 in payments to the British royal family. A request filed with the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) by the Guardian newspaper produced a pair of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, […]
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9 February 2005
On-line Networking Solves Potential Secrecy Problem in Slovakia in 4 Hours
International openness advocates assist Slovakian reformers in debate over EU directive and its effects on Slovak law concept of "silent refusal" Freedom of information advocates in 10 countries plus the U.S. state of New York today combined forces on-line within an elapsed time of four hours to help Slovakian openness reformers refute a legal interpretation […]
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30 June 2004
The Right to Know is the Right to Live: Profile of a Remarkable Peoples’ Movement in India that Links Information to Livelihood
The pioneering right-to-information work of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) in India has won remarkable victories in the struggle against corruption, both at the village and national levels, according to the latest case study posted today by the freedominfo.org virtual network of international openness advocates. Compiled and edited by MKSS member Vivek Ramkumar, a […]
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13 April 2004
The Transparency Labyrinth in Argentina
[See also: “The Freedom of Information Campaign in Argentina,” by Martha Farmelo, 14 OCTOBER 2003] A leader of Argentina’s openness movement, María Baron of the Centro de Implementacion de Politicas Publicas Para la Equidad y la Crecimiento, describes for freedominfo.org the reasons why President Nestor Kirchner decreed access to information rights in December 2003 (while […]
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14 October 2003
The Freedom of Information Campaign in Argentina
[See also “The Transparency Labyrinth in Argentina” by María Baron, 13 APRIL 2004] Buenos Aires-based journalist Martha Farmelo reports for freedominfo.org on Argentina’s current campaign for a freedom of information law, which was passed in May 2003 by the lower house of the national congress and is now pending in the senate. Farmelo describes the […]
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17 January 2003
The Philippines: A Liberal Information Regime Even Without an Information Law
Yvonne T. Chua has been the training director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) since 1995. As journalism trainer, she has trained scores of journalists in the Philippines and abroad, including Indonesia, Cambodia and Nepal. In 1999, she won the first prize in the Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Investigative Journalism for her […]
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30 September 2002
Secrecy and Openness in the European Union The Ongoing Struggle for Freedom of Information By Tony Bunyan, Statewatch
Acknowledgements I would like to thank everyone in the Statewatch office (Trevor, Ben, Yasha, Katrin and Eleanor) without whom I would not have had the time to take out the cases to the European Ombudsman let alone complete this project; Steve Peers (for hours of exchanging views and experiences), Deirdre Curtin (for the stimulating sharing […]