Information Society Watch

May 2006, UNDP

The UNDP Oslo Governance Centre convened a seminar on the right to information to explore how UNDP can strengthen its support to promoting and protecting the right to information in countries where UNDP is working. This paper is based on the seminar programme. The objectives of the seminar were: to increase understanding of how the Right to Information is central to effective governance and development work; to understand how UNDP and other development actors are currently supporting this area of work; to use the discussions/recommendations from the discussions to input into an action plan for strengthening Democratic Governance Group/Oslo Governance Centre’s support to this area. Key points to emerge from the seminar included: 1. the right to information is a cross-cutting area that contributes to the overall strengthening of democratic governance, primarily by increasing participation (including CSOs and media), accountability, transparency, access and distribution of power and delivery of public services; 2. the right to information is of vital importance to poor and marginalized people; 3. UNDP can support right to information in a number of ways without necessarily having a dedicated right to information programme, but it is critical that right to information is systematically integrated into all programming (not just governance), country office (CO) policy advice and other CO activities such as multi-stakeholder dialogue meetings; 4. There is a real need for COs to develop right to information strategies to support their poverty reduction/governance programming. The Common Country Assessment (CCA) or equivalent should include an analysis of the Access to Information (A2I) context which would inform such strategies; 5. Responding to right to information challenges concerns both the ‘supply’ and ‘demand’ sides of information. Capacity and capabilities are central factors for both. On the supply side, UNDP can be most directly engaged working upstream. The right to information is a cultural and service delivery issue (like the delivery of other state public goods and services). The document also includes power point presentations. (adapted from author)

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