A week from now world leaders would be meeting in New York to review progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to chart out a course for accelerated action between now and 2015. There are apprehensions that the goals may not be achieved after all.
According to a round-up released by a UN agency in March this year, the failure to achieve the MDGs so far is not because they are unreachable, or because time is too short, but because of unmet commitments, inadequate resources, and, crucially, a lack of focus and accountability. The UNDP in its report ‘The path to achieving the Millennium Development Goals: A synthesis of evidence from around the world’, had noted the lack of access to information and transparency that was seriously hindering progress in many countries.
The report had said, “In many countries, the mechanisms to hold institutions accountable for their own responsiveness and effectiveness are missing, particularly in relation to transparency. Policies and goals that are understood and known outside the institution, as well as the means to evaluate clearly an institution’s progress toward those goals, are strong tools for achieving results.” This can be seen as an indictment of the ruling regimes in many countries.
All-round development and the crusade against poverty are largely dependent on the growth of an informed citizenry demanding public services and holding their leaders to account, says free speech advocacy group ARTICLE 19. Access to information promotes better governance, reduces corruption and facilitates citizen participation in development programmes. Increased transparency in the allocation of aid and spending of money enables an informed citizenry to hold decisionmakers to account, reducing corruption and inefficiency, and promoting better governance and wider participation.
It is this right to question authorities that is under threat around the world. In 2009, Civicus, an international alliance of civil society groups, tracked systemic threats in 75 countries. In Uganda, for instance, civil society groups have to give a week's notice to the authorities before visiting any rural area. In Zambia, they have to periodically renew their registration to prevent them being overly critical of official policies. In the Philippines, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Swaziland they routinely face trumped-up charges and assaults. In India, many Right to Information (RTI) activists have been attacked and even murdered.
Transparency groups ARTICLE 19, Access Info, the Carter Center, Civicus, the International Budget Partnership, Publish What You Fund, and Transparency International have called for:
- A clear and unequivocal commitment on the part of the international community to access to information and transparency as essential to the achievement of the MDGs, in the spirit of the Millennium Declaration.
- Specific requirements for donor and recipient countries to provide timely, credible, disaggregated information on public resources expended on achieving the MDGs.
- Effective implementation and strengthening of access to information laws and other transparency measures adopted by governments and international financial institutions.
- Acknowledgement of the digital divide and the need to create equitable and universal access to information for marginalised and vulnerable groups.
- Effective implementation of the UN Convention against Corruption and adoption of, and compliance with, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
- Effective measures to make all aid information available and accessible. All donor countries should join the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).
- Adoption and implementation of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, and of the UNEP’s Guidelines for the development of national legislation on access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters.
The war against poverty cannot be fought behind closed doors. And neither can it be done with the governments themselves deciding whether they are on the right track or not.
