June 2009

Bureaucracies are inherently secretive. German sociologist Max Weber said that in the 1920s, long before the advent of television news conferences and the internet, in a time when journalism wasn't actually meant to be investigative. That is true for autocracies, but don't think democratic governments are immune to the secrecy bug. United States government agencies increased the use of privacy exemptions to deny federal Freedom of Information Act requests by more than 600 % between 1998 and 2002, according to a study by Jennifer LaFleur.

While there may be multiple entry points to doing development work, they should all lead to the same obvious place.  That is, of course, reducing poverty and suffering in the world.  For people in development and related fields, working toward these lofty goals requires the tenacity toward achieving results, willingness to be monitored and evaluated, and commitment to continuously enhance one’s technical competence and personal effectiveness.

CommGAP recently met with representatives of the African Community of Practice on Managing for Development Results (AfCoP-MfDR).  On its website, AfCoP describes itself as a virtual community that “promotes learning and knowledge exchange among public managers, organizations, executing agencies and practitioners on how to manage better for Development Results.”  The community has over 500 members from over 32 African countries, working in government, civil society, and the results practice areas.  Online discussions revolve around five substantive areas of managing for results: leadership; M&E; accountability and partnerships; planning and budgeting; and statistical capacity. 

I am asked by the CommGAP team if I would be willing to post a note on the occasion of Jürgen Habermas's 80th birthday. I am grateful for being asked, and especially pleased at the moment of reflection on a remarkable life that this requires.  
 

Of course, his work on the relationship between communication and democratization is widely celebrated. Somewhat ruefully for some of us, since it always seems that one has just finished struggling through an engagement with his latest work when he produces yet another, often in a different field of scholarship: first the public sphere, then reason, then ethics, then law, and most recently religion. But, not to complain. These efforts are all connected together in a system of thought that has the subject of deliberative democracy at its core.
 

Again, Uruguay shows that when civil society intelligently promotes coalition-building and finds sympathetic allies in government, media reform is possible. On June 10, the Congress passed a bill to reform the Penal Code and the Press Law. The new law will abolish libel laws and subject national legislation on communication issues to criteria enforced by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. The bill is likely to be approved by the Executive.

This achievement is another landmark of recent efforts towards media democracy in Uruguay. During the past two years, legislation on community broadcasting, access to public information, and national archiving of information was approved. The passing of community broadcasting law in December 2007 represented a major success. The law assigns one-third of radio frequencies to community, non-profit stations. It defines community stations in terms of the nature of their goals (“social mission”) and ownership (“collective properties”) rather in terms of reach or geographical location. It stipulates the existence of the Consejo Honorario Asesor de Radiodifusión Comunitaria, a multi-sectoral committee with significant representation from civil society that oversees the bidding process and monitors the performance of stations to ensure that they meet social goals. The passing of the “freedom of information” law in October 2008, and the elimination of libel and contempt laws are other positive advances. This is encouraging if we consider that, like in the rest of the region, the dominant media system historically conformed with the norm of media policies in Latin America: state patrimonialism and collusion between governments and large business.