By Toby McIntosh
The pace of passing national access to information laws has slowed markedly and may not speed up any time soon.
A variety of factors are at work, according to activists and officials consulted by Eye on Global Transparency. These include more hostile political environments, weakened civil society organizations and reduced financial support from international and philanthropic organizations. International initiatives to encourage adoption, such as the UN’s Strategic Development Goals, do not appear to be having a strong effect.
The drop-off follows a boom in the late 20th Century. Currently, about three-quarters of all 193 UN member countries have access laws (137).
The laws vary in many particulars and go by different names: access to information (ATI), freedom of information (FOI) and right to information (RTI). The core goal is to provide public access to government information, with a defined request process and disclosure standards (including exceptions).
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Pace of Adoption Stagnating
On the flip side, however, about one quarter of all UN countries, 56 of them, do not have access laws. And the rate of adoption has slowed significantly in recent years.
Only 10 new laws have passed in the last four years (2020-2023), a rate of 2.5 new laws annually.
By contrast, in the preceding decade of 2010-2019, 4.4 new laws were approved per year.
The latest country to adopt a new law was Zambia in 2023. An improved law in Kyrgyzstan came into force in January of 2024. However, thus far in 2024, no new laws have been approved.
Looking ahead, few countries appear poised to pass new laws, according to inquiries by EYE. Malaysia seems to be the next one on the horizon, but probably not until 2025.
What Kinds of Countries Don’t Have Laws?
A variety of observations that can be made reviewing the list of 56 nations without laws. These include:
- Many have repressive governments,
- Quite a few are small,
- Many are in Africa, and
- Some are experiencing armed conflict.
A spreadsheet of tally of countries with and without access laws was prepared by the Centre for Law Democracy (CLD), of Halifax, Canada, which works internationally to promote, among other things, the adoption about freedom of information.
“We have grouped the countries without laws into three main categories,” said Toby Mendel, CLD’s Executive Director. “The first, those with very weak democracies, accounts for 30 of the 56. The second, very small countries (below 1 million people), accounts for another 17, leaving only 9 others, all in Africa and Asia.”
The democracy scores come from V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy), a Swedish-based organization.
Future Challenges Foreseen
Shifting political winds have favored authoritarians disinclined to embrace transparency. Civil society organizations (CSOs), traditionally the drivers of pro-transparency campaigns, have faced growing political hostility, weakening their ability to advocate for new access laws.
A glance through CLD’s list suggests the challenges ahead.
Certainly no invitations for more openness are expected in North Korea, Singapore, Syria, Cuba, Myanmar or Iraq, to name a few.
Nor are countries wracked by conflict, such as Mali and Haiti, likely to enact access laws in the near future.
The prospects for change there appear slim in the Middle Eastern North African (MENA) region, which has a high proportion of countries without access laws, notably Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Syria and Libya.
Africa is the continent with the largest number of countries without laws, notwithstanding a rapid increase in the last two decades. On the African continent, including MENA nations, laws exist in 29 of 55 nations. Some African countries without laws are not so different from neighbors who have access to information laws, but few countries there are expected to pass laws soon.
The deterrents to adopting laws are not only political. Limited capacity to write and administer laws also impedes forward movement, particularly in a dozen small countries, including Pacific Island and Caribbean nations. At the same time, many very small countries have adopted laws, showing that it is possible.
With all these factors at play, it seems likely that the rate of passage will continue to slow.
On the positive side, if looked at by population, 91 percent of the world’s population lives in countries with access laws, according to a 2023 Article 19 analysis.
‘Starved,’ Says Leading African Advocate
“Campaigns for ATI laws continue, but starved of much-needed resources,” stressed Gilbert Sendugwa, Executive Director of the Africa Freedom of Information Centre.
“We work with bare hands,” he continued.
CSOs are “very critical” to this work, he said, but now operate in “shrinking space.”
“Many have either been strangled or are fighting to survive,” Sendugwa said. “Unfortunately, most of our members are fighting not for RTI but to survive.” They face legal and administrative difficulties imposed by governments “as well as funding challenges,” he said.
Donors, especially governments, want to fund what recipient governments “are comfortable with,” he observed. Trade and international geopolitical considerations “have taken an upper hand,” he said. “Governments are being asked not to deal with Russia and China but not the human rights situation or the corruption if it’s not with Russia or Chinese companies,” according to Sendugwa. Recipient governments no longer see passage of access laws as an incentive to receive aid, he said.
Private donations around access to information has waned, he said, pointing especially to reduced investment by the Open Society Foundations.
Nevertheless, advocacy work continues, Sendugwa said.
“Since last year, working with our members we have sent several letters of appeal for laws in countries like Somalia, Senegal, Zambia, Algeria, etc.” he said, adding, “We have done press releases, meetings with key officials and stakeholders.”
Advocates have availed themselves of international forums, too. “We have worked through the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and UPR to influence their recommendations and engagement with states parties on passage of RTI laws,” Sendugwa said. (The UPR is the Universal Periodic Review, a mechanism for examining national human rights records, run by the UN Human Rights Council.)
“We have campaigned for inclusion of passage and implementation of RTI laws in OGP national action plans, etc,” he said, referring to the Open Government Partnership, an international effort.
“Limited” funding inhibits the ability to run effective campaigns, Sendugwa stressed, impacting efforts to build public awareness and influence governmental stakeholders.
“There is an urgent need for stronger capacity of CSOs,” according to Sendugwa.
Malaysia Drive Fueled by CSOs, Government Officials
The importance of CSOs as persistent pro-transparency campaigners is evident in Malaysia, where an access law may be brought before legislators in November or early next year.
It’s been quite a journey, according to Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia.
“The main impetus came about in 2018 with a new government” with a reformist agenda, she explained, but a political coup in early 2020 shifted the political agenda (coinciding with the pandemic).
“But one thing was key during this period,” according to Venkiteswaran. “Even though the politicians went back and forth, the proposal for the RTI was a serious agenda for the bureaucrats,” she said, noting that the department in charge has a team working on the draft legislation together with civil society.
“The CSOs kept the momentum actually,” Venkiteswaran said. “Groups like the Centre for Independent Journalism have been lobbying for the RTI since 2007.”
There continues to be optimism that a national law will be enacted, she said.
International Consensus Values Access Laws
There is no dearth of high-level international and regional resolutions supporting access to information.
For example, the Tashkent Declaration of 2023 called on UNESCO member states to reaffirm their commitment to the right of access to information and was endorsed at UNESCO’s 42nd General Conference.
Access to information was included among the UN’s 2015 Strategic Development Goals (SDGs). There are twin goals – both the adoption and implementation of access laws are called for in Goal 16, which focuses on “promoting just, peaceful and inclusive societies.” The associated “indicator” (SDG 16.10.2) calls for measuring the “number of countries that adopt and implement constitutional, statutory and/or policy guarantees for public access to information.”
“One would have hoped that within 5 years all UN member states would have passed ATI laws and focus on their implementation,” said Sendugwa, continuing, “No way — this didn’t build the momentum especially in Africa!”
Accelerated Efforts Needed UNESCO Says
“Accelerated efforts are needed” on access to information, according to a UN progress report on the SDGs issued in July 2024. The target date for meeting the SDG goals is 2030.
Adoption of the SDG agenda is voluntary, with countries reporting on their own progress. UNESCO was charged with monitoring progress on the access to information goal. (The SDG monitoring system does not evaluate the quality of the laws. The Centre for Democracy and Law ratings are considered the most reliable evaluations of the legal frameworks, which vary considerably.)
The adoption of access laws is easily quantifiable, although UNESCO does not keep a public list.
UNESCO conducts an annual eight-question survey, with questions on whether an oversight institution exists and whether various statistics are kept. UNESCO does not publish the national scores in its annual reports (2023 version), but will make the scores available on request.
The “implementation” scoring is not the subject of this article, but has been much debated. In 2022, EYE reported that 11 of the 102 respondents earned perfect scores in the 2021 survey. Some of the top scorers are widely known to be opaque, such as Azerbaijan. UNESCO’s 2024 report, in which 120 countries responded, was titled “The need to accelerate worldwide progress.”
A UNESCO official, Marius Lukosiunas, said the survey “serves not only to collect information but also to raise Member States’ awareness about their commitment to SDG 16.10.2.”
‘Stagnation’ Observed
“Adopting new access to information laws has stagnated, and the enforcement of many existing laws has been weakened,” said Article 19, a nongovernmental group, in advance of the July High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), the annual UN platform for discussing progress toward achieving the SDGs. At the July HLPF meeting in New York, Article 19 called for a renewed effort on Section 16.
“Even when states adopt right to information laws, the implementation of the legislation is problematic,” Article 19 wrote. It continued: “This includes systemic delays in responding to information requests and numerous other barriers, such as a culture of secrecy and charging fees. Bodies overseeing the implementation of these laws suffer from a shortage of resources or delays in the appointment of relevant officials (information commissioners).”
Ilaria Fevola of Article 19 told EYE that the “very slow and minimal progress” on adoption “is now evidently linked to a lack of political will.”
Fevola said, “Unlike the 1990s, when the global trend began, states today possess the knowledge, assistance, best practices, and model laws needed to draft effective legislation.”
“Despite this, recent years have seen the enactment of poorly drafted laws that fail to meet international standards for the right to information,” she said, citing a draft bill in Iraq that “is much worse than the previous ones” and “the same with Senegal.”
“This raises broader concerns about the effectiveness of global mechanisms, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in incentivizing such adoptions,” Fevola stated.
UNESCO official Summarizes Efforts
UNESCO official Lukosiunas acknowledged “the substantial work we have ahead of us until 2030 to encourage more countries to pass the ATI laws.”
UNESCO “provides a UN platform for other international, intergovernmental, regional, and non-governmental organizations and professional networks to collaborate in achieving the target of SDG 16.10,” Lukosiunas said, adding, “Obviously, we mostly focus in countries which still do not have ATI laws.”
UNESCO organizes the annual celebration of International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI), officially Sept. 28, which in 2024 will be held in Ghana Oct. 1-2 and webcast. The 2024 theme is “Mainstreaming Access to Information and Participation in the Public Sector.” No program has been released yet, but Lukosiunas said indicated that the IDUAI conference will focus on Africa. Last year, for IDUAI 2023, held in the United Kingdom, the theme was “the importance of the online space for access to information.”
Besides these annual conferences, Lukosiunas said UNESCO field offices organize 20 national advocacy events worldwide every year, primarily in the countries without laws, to advocate for passing laws or to enhance their implementation.
UNESCO also helps organize events at international conferences, he said, such as the High-Level Political Forum. At the July HLPF, UNESCO helped sponsor a panel discussion on the role of digitization in the implementation of access to information laws.
UNESCO also has given technical assistance to UN member states, Lukosiunas said, “including Uzbekistan, Malaysia, Cambodia, Madagascar, Kiribati, FSM [The Federated States of Micronesia], and the Marshall Islands, to draft or enhance their ATI laws and implementation.” He continued, “This fall, we plan a capacity-building initiative covering Fiji and neighbouring countries.”
“Similar efforts are ongoing in Africa,” Lukosiunas said, “where we solidified the establishment of the African Network of Information Commissioners in 2023 and continue to work on training and capacity building for its members.” ANIC held its annual meeting in May of 2024. The website contains materials of access to information, including a list of the 29 African nations with laws.
The UNESCO project in Madagascar supports ILONTSERA, a nongovernmental organization, to push for passage of an access law., according to UNESCO’s November 2023 announcement, that does not indicate the amount of support provided. UNESCO noted that access legislation law “has been in gestation and waiting to be passed for 17 years.” The ILONTSERA website says the group was planning capacity-building workshops for journalists in 2024 about a draft law on access to public information.
Information Commissioners Urge UNESCO to Organize Conference
National information commissioners who met June 2024 in Albania for the annual meeting of the International Conference of Information Commissioners (ICIC), passed a resolution that appeared to ask UNESCO to convene a global meeting on the subject of getting more ATI laws passed.
In a Public Statement, ICIC said its 55 members were committed to: “Call UNESCO to organize a meeting of all the governments including information commissions and get universal commitment on ATI from governments.”
But ICIC officials later told EYE that the intent was not just on getting commitments to pass laws, but rather for a more general discussion of best practices on access to information.
UNESCO official Jaco Du Toi official in July told EYE, “We will certainly discuss it with them.” He said, “UNESCO is committed to organize global meetings to assure that as many countries as possible adopt and implement access to information laws.”
The ICIC itself does not financially support passage of new laws, although representatives from Malaysia, which is considering access legislation, attended the June meeting.
Other Efforts to Support Access Laws?
The ICIC also called on “United Nations agencies and multilateral organizations to integrate ATI as one of the major accountability tools on their agenda while dealing with governments.”
ICIC officials later told EYE they were in contact with World Bank officials, but had no knowledge of what the Bank or other multilateral organization are doing on the subject.
Evaluating the work of the World Bank on the access to information is complicated because work on the subjects is blended with broader projects on governance, officials have told EYE in the past.
In 2016, three veteran staffers assigned specifically to encourage the creation and implementation of national FOI laws left the Bank following a reorganization. (See FreedomInfo.org report, an article on NGO protest letter and an article on World Bank response.)
Asked Aug. 13 about what the Bank is doing to support passage of new laws and implementation of existing laws, a Bank communications official forwarded a 2020 Bank report, by a staffer no longer there, about the difficulties of implementing access laws.
OGP Commitments on Access Laws Decline
The Open Government Partnership, formed in 2011, is a unique multilateral effort involving 75 government and civil society groups.
During OGP’s early years, it was given credit for encouraging a few countries to pass FOI laws. One part of the OGP membership criteria was having an access law or working toward getting one.
But these days, few countries are seeking to join the OGP. The most recent member was Timor-Leste in 2023, which has a law adopted in 2016.
Once admitted, OGP members develop national plans around many open government topics. However, according to 2023 OGP factsheet, “Fewer countries have made right to information commitments in recent years than before.”
Little Data on Pro-Access Financing
Financial backing for campaigns to pass or improve access laws has declined, according to anecdotal reports from those interviewed, but quantifying this is difficult.
There is scant detail available about support from philanthropies, governments and multilateral organizations on this subject alone.
A key complication is that available databases lump access to information together with related topics, such as media training and open contracting.
So while there are recent reports of support for healthy democracies and “information ecosystems” there is limited specific data on funding to pass or improve access laws.
Nevertheless, the reports provide some useful context.
“Democracy funding remains small compared to that for other issues,” said a 2024 report by the Democracy Fund, a US-based grant-making organization. Democracy funding was only 0.7 percent of all philanthropic funding ($3.4 billion) in the U.S. in 2022.
The data getting closest to granular data on support for access laws is found in an April 2024 report by the Trust, Accountability & Inclusion Collaborative. TAI is “a collaborative of donors whose priorities include supporting evolution and sustainability of a healthy information ecosystem.” (TAI in 2023 changed its name, dropping “Transparency” as the first word and replacing it with “Trust.”)
The TAI report was based on proprietary data about donations by major US donors from the Candid Foundation Directory, which has a classification system including a code for “freedom of information.”
TAI looking at spending to build “healthy information ecosystems” between 2017 and 2021.
Of note, donations is this area, more than $21 billion, amounted to only a tiny share (2.7%) of the overall spending by the philanthropies studied.
Looking deeper, the researchers examined 13 Candid Foundation categories, including support for “information and communications” (the largest category), open data and “information and media literacy” (the smallest category).
For the freedom of information category, contributions of just $15,043,102 were recorded.
The report said “it is worrying that codes like “Information and media literacy,” “Freedom of information, ” and “Media democracy” are being neglected in the overall funding, in a context where misinformation and disinformation reign.”
To dig deeper for information on specific projects regarding access laws would mean looking at the websites of philanthropies, national governments that give foreign aid and multilateral organizations.
EYE welcomes reader information about efforts to pass access laws and those who fund them.
Author disclosure: I have personal experience with donor fatigue, having seen funding cut off for three efforts I was closely involved in:
- The Global Transparency Initiative (2005-2013) – GTI advocated for access to information policies at international financial institutions. Some GTI documents, including guiding disclosure principles, are posted on the Eye on Global Transparency website;
- FreedomInfo.org – FreedomInfo provided news about access to information worldwide from 2002-2017. The archive remains posted courtesy of the sponsor, The National Security Archive in Washington, D.C.; and
- The FOI Advocates Network – FOIANet members still exchange information through a discussion list. Sign up here. “If you are an individual and you are actively working on the Right to Information you can become a member of our discussion list.” I am still on the FOIANET Steering Committee, but the committee has not met since 2020.
Eye on Global Transparency is entirely my own project. I post several articles a month. Please sign up for free in the right column to be notified of new articles. Or follow EYE on Twitter @tobyjmcintosh or via LinkedIn.
