20 February 2019,
The Methodology for Assessing Right to Information Implementation in Pakistan was launched today at a workshop in Islamabad. The methodology is a sophisticated tool for assessing the quality of implementation of right to information (RTI) laws. The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) has been working over a period of about one and one-half years, in close collaboration with the Information Commissions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces in Pakistan as well as other local stakeholders, to develop this methodology.
“This is the first comprehensive tool that has ever been developed for assessing how well right to information laws are being implemented,” said Toby Mendel, Executive Director, CLD.“We are really pleased to have been able to work on this with the Information Commissions and other stakeholders in Pakistan and we now plan to roll this out globally.”
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 16.10.2 looks at whether States have adopted and implemented RTI legislation. The RTI Rating indicates which countries have adopted laws and how strong those laws are. However, assessing how well countries are doing in terms of implementing their laws, the second part of Indicator 16.10.2, is far more complicated and this methodology addresses that issue, filling thereby a gap in the assessment framework. There are current plans to run a pilot assessment using the methodology in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.
The Methodology has been developed in the context of Pakistan, but it is easily adaptable to other countries. CLD plans to develop a global version of the methodology soon and then to apply it in other countries. The Methodology has been developed with the technical support of the German Development Cooperation and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
The Methodology is available at: Methodology for Assessing Right to Information Implementation in Pakistan.
For further information, please contact:
Toby Mendel
Executive Director
Centre for Law and Democracy
Email: toby@law-democracy.org
+1 902 431 3688
www.law-democracy.org
twitter: @law_democracy
