THE ROLE OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION IN ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS Edward Ronald Sekyewa, Executive Director, Hub for Investigative Media (HIM)

SDG’s and Access to Information The United Nations (UN) has developed a set of action-oriented goals to achieve global sustainable development by To help meet the goals, UN member states can draw on Access to Information legislations — that is, information should be freely available for the people to use. This kind of data is essential both to hold our leaders accountable and to measure progress in meeting the SDG’s as well as ensuring the notion of citizens’ participation.

What is access to information? Access to information and freedom of expression are international human rights norms. Article 19 of both the UN Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states that the right to freedom of expression includes not only freedom to impart information and ideas of all kinds, but also freedom to seek and receive them regardless of frontiers and in whatever medium. Article 19 covers both concepts of information and communication. By doing so, people then become generators, users and conduits of information. Article 22 of the ICCPR also provides for the right to freedom of association with others which enables collective analysis of information and can lead to collective action.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Access to Information can help achieve the SDGs by providing critical information on natural resources, government operations, public services, and population demographics. These insights can inform national priorities and help determine the most effective paths for action on national issues. Access to information is a key resource for: Fostering economic growth and job creation. It can help launch new businesses, optimizing existing companies’ operations, and improve the climate for foreign investment. It can also make the job market more efficient and serve as a resource in training for critical technological job skills.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Improving efficiency and effectiveness of public services. It can help strengthen healthcare systems by connecting patients to providers; promote education and ongoing learning; and improve food security on both a large and small scale. Increasing transparency, accountability and citizen participation. Access to information plays a critical role in improving governance by exposing and preventing mismanagement and corruption. It also helps ensure environmental sustainability through transparent data that can help reduce pollution, conserve natural resources and build resilience to climate change.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Facilitating better information-sharing within government. ATI can help improve record-keeping and documentation within government entities. This happens when government understands and embraces its obligation to provide information to its citizens pro-actively and on demand, thereby creating systems that will make it easier for government officials to retrieve this information and forward it to the requesters. (example of files that were eaten by ants and rats) Digitizing government archives.

Measuring progress on the SDG’s Access to information can help ensure that plans to achieve the SDGs are evidence-based, and that their outcomes are measurable. The SDGs were launched with an emphasis on collecting data that will be extensive and specific enough to serve these needs. In order to monitor the implementation of the SDGs, this data should be available to all citizens irrespective of their income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location, sexual orientation and other characteristics relevant in national contexts.

Measuring progress on SDG’s Open Data can help assess the SDGs in three main ways: These are: 1. Standards 2. Accountability 3. Impact Assessment

1. Standards Accessibility to information can help establish consistent definitions and units of measurement. Over time, as more adopt standards, collect and open data, this will result in improved data accuracy and completeness. By encouraging Open Data standards, development initiatives can build off from existing datasets, schemes, and databases and contribute to the broader evidence base.

2. Accountability By releasing Open Data about a full range of SDG initiatives, government institutions can show their commitment to the SDGs and be held accountable for the results. This transparency and accountability will engage citizens especially in playing the monitoring role. An informed citizenry is an empowered citizenry.

3. Impact Assessment Facilitated by common units of measurement, Open Data can help gauge the impact of development initiatives over time, geographies and topical areas. For example, Open Data can help establish benchmarks to measure progress against the SDGs, both within each country and between countries. It can reveal inequalities and disparities in income, wealth and access to government services and provide a basis for assessing progress over time. On a global level, this shared data also makes it possible to measure progress on those SDGs that require international coordination.

Access to Information: The Ugandan Experience Ugandan ATI law was passed in The law remained largely redundant until 2011 when the Regulations that guide that law were passed. Despite the passing of the Regulations in 2011, the law has been hardly put to use by the general public, mainly because of ignorance (not knowing that this law exists), and government has also not created enough awareness to the public about the existence of the law. Government entities (MDA’s) are still very unwilling to provide vital information. HIM has taken several government entities to court for non-compliance to the ATI law, and we have so far won three cases. After the court wins, information has been provided.

The Ugandan ATI law and ICT The Ugandan law is an “analog” law. The forms that are used to request for information from a government entity are provided within the Regulations. There are no other legally-binding provision to request for Information other than using the forms provided for in the Regulations. AFIC (African Freedom of Information Centre) in conjunction with other players have come up with the “Askyourgov” online portal where citizens can get information from different MDA’s. However, this approach cannot be legally enforced in case the information is denied because online applications for information are not catered for under Uganda’s ATI law. There’s need to seek for amendments of the ATI law to provide for digital requests for information, among others.

Conclusion It is very important that governments invest in digitizing their record-keeping systems to enable ICT-based information retrieval to take root. In implementing the SDG’s, governments should consider dissemination of information as one of the factors that will be a yardstick in measuring the success or failure of the programmes. Citizen’s participation in the SDG programmes should be ensured at all levels through the Access to Information legislations. Pro-active disclosure from implementing agencies should be highly encouraged. Thank you very much.