By Toby McIntosh
UNESCO has begun collecting information from 43 countries on implementation of their access to information laws, according to a March 5 announcement.
The effort is a test run for the instrument that will measure compliance with the indicator 16.10.2 of the international Sustainable Development Goals. UNESCO is the agency charged with reporting on “the number of countries that adopt and implement constitutional, statutory and/or policy guarantees for public access to information.”
The 16-page “reporting instrument” being employed seeks a wide range of information including detail on requests made and answered, on the relevant budget and on proactive disclosure.
UNESCO over the past several years has been developing a “template” to guide measurement of SDG 16.10.2 which had not been released in final form. However, a UNESCO official said that “the full template is the survey document.” He added, “There will be a guideline to accompany the template, but it’s still under review.”
The 43 pilot countries selected for the global data collection are developing and least developed countries that will submit their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) to the UN High-level Political Forum (HLPF) this July.
The countries are: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Congo (Republic of the), Côte d’Ivoire, El Salvador, Eritrea, Eswatini (Swaziland), Fiji, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritania, Mauritius, Nauru, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Serbia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and United Republic of Tanzania.
UNESCO is working in collaboration with UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD), the Canadian consulting group contracted to conduct the survey.
The Centre for Law and Democracy recently announced a methodology for assessing implement of right to information las developed in connection with partners in Pakistan.
UNESCO recently prepared a report for the UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration about the difficulties of assessing progress on SDG 16.10.2.
