By Toby McIntosh
The scores earned by some countries on UNESCO’s 2021 survey about access to information include some eyebrow-raising results.
UNESCO chose not to publicize the scores, but provided them after a request from EYE.
The eight-question survey is intended to measure progress toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 16.10.2, a two-part goal that calls for access to information guarantees and their implementation. UNESCO is the “custodian” for measuring the goal. The UNESCO survey was conducted in 2021 and is soon to be repeated.
Many High Scores Seen
Overall, being at the top of the class in the UNESCO survey was pretty common.
Eleven of the 102 respondents to the survey earned perfect 9.0 scores on the 0-9 scale. Thirty-five (34 percent) scored 8.0 or above. Fifty-five respondents (54 percent) scored 7.0 or higher.
Some of the top scorers, however, are widely known to be opaque. Azerbaijan, for example, posted a perfect score of nine points.
While some countries with good reputations for providing access to information scored well, so did others considered to have weaker regimes. EYE consulted with several experienced international experts for their opinions.
Two countries considered by the experts to be high performers, South Africa and Mexico, got top marks in the UNESCO survey. But also receiving full 9.0 scores were Honduras and Tanzania, whose reputations are much weaker, the experts noted.
One suspect score is for Equatorial Guinea, which doesn’t have an access law, but checked enough boxes to get an 8.2 score. The results depend on representations from the respondents.
The survey asks if statistics on requests are kept, but some countries, such as Azerbaijan, answered affirmatively, thus earning points, while also reported having no data for 2020.
Out of 91 countries and territories with ATI laws, only 40 (44 percent) provided request data for 2020, according to UNESCO’s summary of the survey results. (See EYE article.)
Seven countries were given zero scores. One of these, Romania, has a law and so answered, but appears not to have been credited with any points.
EYE created a spreadsheet summary of the UNESCO data based on the detailed UNESCO 2021 SDG 16.10.2 Survey Results.
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Reasons for Not Disclosing Scores
The UN agency intentionally didn’t disclose the 2021 survey scores for all countries, or the individual country answers.
UNESCO’s scoring is “enabling it to track progress over time,” the report said. A UNESCO official said the individual country data “is for UNESCO to be able to distill trends” and “not to rank countries.”
The first five survey questions ask whether access guarantees exist, whether an oversight body is mandated, what roles it serves, whether appointment of public information officers at agencies is required, and whether exemptions to the law are well-defined.
On implementation, the survey asks whether request statistics are kept, if reports are issued, if training is conducted, and appeals statistics are kept. (More detail on the survey below.)
Having an oversight body correlated with a high score on the survey. Out of the 79 respondent countries and territories with ATI oversight institutions, 70% of them scored 7 and above, UNESCO reported.
UNESCO’s statements on access to information are very supportive of the value of strong oversight bodies.
Structures, Process Surveyed; Quality Not Assessed
The UNESCO survey emphasizes structures and processes and is not intended to judge the quality of the laws or assess government performance in supplying information.
Contrasts exist between UNESCO’s results and the quality rankings by RTI Rating done by the Centre for Democracy and Law, a Canadian non-profit. The 61-indicator RTI Rating system evaluates the quality of the laws of 136 countries against stated standards. It does not evaluate their implementation.
Some UNESCO scores correlate with those of RTI Rating; others don’t.
RTI Rating says Mexico has the world’s second best law. On the UNESCO scale, Mexico gets an 8.8 score. (Mexico was docked 0.2 point because its oversight body has no assigned “mediation” role.)
On the other hand, Honduras and Tanzania received perfect 9.0 scores on the UNESCO survey, while according to RTI Rating Honduras ranks 72nd and Tanzania 94th.
The high scores for Afghanistan in both ratings, number one in RTI Rating and 9.0 by UNESCO, came before the change of governments.
Eight UNESCO Survey Questions
The spreadsheet supplied by UNESCO provides the total scores and the scores for each of the two sections of the survey, the first on adoption of a law, the second on implementation of the law. The spreadsheet shows the answers to the individual questions, but doesn’t include the scores for each question.
Here’s UNESCO’s summary of the questions and scoring system:
Section One: Adoption (0-5)
- Whether a constitutional, statutory and/or other legal guarantee that recognises Access to Information as a fundamental right exists in your country. Yes = 1 No = 0 In progress: 0.5
- Whether the legal guarantee on Access to Information specifies the need of a dedicated oversight institution [or institutions]. Yes = 1 No = 0
- Whether the legal guarantee on Access to Information specifies the need for national public bodies (Ministry/Agency/Department) to appoint public information officers or a specific unit to handle Access to Information requests from the public. Yes, to ALL public bodies being required to appoint = 1 Yes, but only to some public bodies = 0.5 No = 0
- Whether the legal guarantee on Access to Information mandates the following roles for the dedicated Access to Information oversight institution/s: a) Oversight (legal responsibility to ensure implementation of the guarantee) b) Appeals c) Monitoring of Access to Information implementation d) Enforcement of compliance with Access to Information legal guarantee e) Mediation. 2 for each role selected. Total point = 1
- Does the legal guarantee on Access to Information explicitly mention permissible exemptions that are elaborated in well-defined categories whereby requests for information may be legally denied? Yes = 1 No = 0
Section Two: Implementation (0-4)
- Whether the dedicated Access to Information oversight institution/s in practice during the reporting year (2020) has carried out the following activities: a) Published an Annual Report b) Provided implementation guidance and/or offer training to officials from public bodies (Ministry/Agency/ Department) c) Raised public awareness d) Kept statistics on requests and/or appeals e) Requested public bodies to keep statistics of their activities and decisions. 0.4 for each activity selected. Total points: 2
- Whether in practice the dedicated Access to Information oversight institution/s at the national level receive/s reports from public bodies (Ministry/Agency/Department) on the processing of ATI requests. Yes = 1 No = 0
- Whether the dedicated Access to Information oversight institution/s keep/s statistics of appeals at the national level. Yes = 1 No = 0
Note: The spreadsheet gives a slightly different Question Five, implying measurement of the quality of the exemptions in the access laws on the basis of “International standards.” (5. Whether the legal guarantee on Access to Information explicitly mentions permissible exemptions that are consistent with international standards).
UNESCO’s report on the 2021 results uses another description, also suggesting qualitative measurement, stating:
Standards for exemptions mean that any such withholding must be based on narrow, proportionate, necessary and clearly defined limitations. Exemptions should apply only where there is a risk of substantial harm to a protected interest (as per the list in Figure 2 below), and where the harm is greater than the overall public interest in having access to the information. These exemptions are sometimes cited in relation to requests for information, and also for refusals in relation to declined initial requests.
The survey, however, asks only if the exemptions are “elaborated in well-defined categories.”
Playing With Numbers
Figures are provided on the numbers of requests received and their disposition, but their utility may be limited. Almost three dozen countries provided numbers on the formal requests received in 2020, reporting 4.4 million such requests.
The survey further sought a breakdown of their disposition: denied, pending, dismissed as ineligible, granted partially, and granted fully. However, suggesting double counting, not uncommon in such accounting, the total for all five categories was 4.7 million.
The number of requests granted fully is roughly two-thirds, according to the data,
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