By Toby McIntosh
The African Development Bank is reviewing its policy on disclosure of information, according to AfDB officials.
The implementation review is being conducted internally and will result in a report to the Board, the officials told EYE via coordinated emails on April 25 and May 19.
“Unfortunately it will not be released before it is sent to the Board,” according to the AfDB, which answered questions sent by EYE. “It is envisaged that the implementation review report will be finalized and made public before the end of Q2 2022.”
The review process could trigger policy change proposals, in which case another process would begin, the officials said.
“We have not ruled out revision,” The AfDB elaborated: “One of the main objectives of this preliminary internal review is to make recommendations that can inform future Policy revision. Therefore, if a policy revision is recommended it would be a separate process dependent on a more elaborate independent evaluation of the policy.”
The AfDB also said: “It bears emphasizing that this is an internal Bank implementation review and not a policy revision based on an evaluation of the policy and its implementation by an independent evaluation mechanism. This is expected to be the next level.”
External input has been sought, according to the AfDB message. “Even though this is an internal implementation review, the Bank engaged with a large number of CSOs registered in its database of which 30 CSOs accepted to participate in the review. Input was also received from a collation (sic) of 5 CSO’s who expressed interest in the implementation review.”
The review is being undertaken in compliance with section 3.5.3 of the AfDB Policy on Disclosure and Access to Information” (DAI) policy, the AfDB said. The last policy amendments were made in 2012 and have been in effect since Feb. 3, 2013.
Section 3.5.3 says a review will be conducted three years after coming into effect, which would have been 2016.
3.5.3 Three years following the coming into effect of this Policy, Management will carry out a review on its implementation. In addition, Management will, on an annual basis, submit a report to the Boards of Directors of its observations on the implementation of the Policy, including the activities of the IDC and the Appeals Panel.
The most recent annual report is for 2020 and was released June 2021. Among other things, the report states that out of 454 requests processed in 2020, 279 were granted, two requests were denied (strictly confidential information) and documents could not be found for six requests. “A significant number of requests (166) were classified as unrelated to DAI.”
The reply to EYE inquiry came from the Records Management and Information Disclosure (RMID) Secretariat and the DAI team. Getting an answer took several months. EYE sent an initial inquiry to the AFDB press office on Feb. 15.
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