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Proactive vs. Reactive Transparency
"Transparency, is transparency, is transparency I thought.It is transparent is it not?
Well except when it is proactive, that makes it not reactive."
My poetic dalliances aside, Helen Darbishire’s recent World Bank Institute commissioned and CommGAP financed working paper on standards, challenges and opportunities in transparency made me think. “Proactive Transparency: The Future of the Right to Information” looks at, among other things, the drivers of transparency, the best of transparency provisions on the national and international stage, and notable outcomes grown from the examination of transparency provisions. So, what exactly is proactive transparency and why is it important?
Even though I wrote a blog post about a proactive transparency project in New York State a few weeks ago, Project Sunlight, I found it hard to wrap my mind around the concept, and how institutionalizing it could benefit economies around the world. That is until I read this paper. According to Ms. Darbishire, the Executive Director of Access Info Europe and the Chair of the FOI Advocates Network, “there are two main ways by which information held by public bodies can be accessed by the public. The first is when individual members of the public file requests for and receive information (reactive disclosure). The second is when information is made public at the initiative of the public body, without a request being filed. This is known as proactive disclosure and the result is proactive transparency, which can be achieved, using a multiplicity of means ranging from publications and official gazettes, to publicly accessible notice boards, to radio and television announcements, to posting on the Internet via a public institutions website." Ms. Darbishire’s paper reviews “the development of, and the emerging standards for, proactive disclosure” and purport that “proactive disclosure is integral to the transparency that underpins good government, and in that sense has always been part of the right to information, even preceding the more recent development of access to information laws.”
In my review of Helen’s paper I was particularly intrigued by the “Proactive Disclosure as the Future of the Right to Know” section because it moved from the idea of theory to actual countries and entities around the world putting these tools into practice. I would recommend that reform proponents read this paper and pay particular attention to the practical suggestions. On that note, some of the finer moments in history for proactive disclosure in 2009 were:
January 1, 2009: Mandatory minimumstandard proactive disclosure rules come intoforce in the UK under the InformationJanuary 21, 2009: President Barack Obamaon his first day in office issued a memorandumon the Freedom of Information Actwhich shifted the U.S. Administration froma presumption of secrecy to one of disclosurein response to FOI requests, and wentone step further to urge proactive disclosure:“The presumption of disclosure also meansthat agencies should take affirmative steps tomake information public. They should notwait for specific requests from the public. Allagencies should use modern technology to informcitizens about what is known and doneby their Government. Disclosure should betimely.”April 14, 2009: European Court of HumanRights confirms for the first time thatthere is a fundamental right of access to informationlinked to the right to freedomof expression and necessary for civil societyto hold government bodies accountableand to create forums for public debate.April 30, 2009: European Union rules requiringmember states to proactively disclosedata on agricultural subsidies come intoforce. This is the largest everproactive disclosure initiative to apply acrossthe 27-member Union.May 21, 2009: U.S. Government launchesData.gov whose purpose is to give directpublic access to machine-readable datasetsgenerated by the Executive Branch of theU.S. Federal Government. An initial 47 datasetsare on line, of the thousands plannedfor release. Openness advocates hail thisas an “enormous change in attitude aboutwhat ‘public’ means”.June 10, 2009: UK government announcesthat Tim Berners-Lee, one of the inventorsof the World Wide Web, is workingwith to create a single online point of accessfor government-held public data andhow to use the Internet to improve governmentconsultation processes. Data.gov.ukwas subsequently launched on January 21,2010.June 18, 2009: World’s first treaty on accessto information, the Council of Europeopens for signature; it contains a provisionon proactive disclosure.July 8, 2009: Indian government announcedthat it will be broadening the rules for proactivedisclosure contained in the Right to InformationAct (2005) to increase disclosure in “non-strategicareas” beyond the 18 core disclosure provisionsof the act. Civil society groups point out thatthere is flexibility in the existing provisions andurge better compliance with these.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Dbl90
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