As of today, well over 120 countries around the world have laws giving individuals the right to access information held by public authorities, often called right to information (RTI), freedom of information (FOI) or access to information (ATI) laws. These laws are widely recognized as giving effect to the international human right to information, as being key to democracy and the protection of all human rights, and as being central to sustainable development efforts.
Despite the widespread and long-standing nature of these laws, the development of internationally accepted methodologies to evaluate them remains somewhat nascent. There is a respected global methodology for assessing how strong the legal framework for this right is, in the form of the RTI Rating ( www.RTI-Rating.org ), launched in 2011. However, until recently, there was no established methodology for measuring how well RTI laws are being implemented in practice.
There are a number of imperative reasons for developing a solid methodology for assessing RTI implementation. A lot of effort is normally put – by both official supply-side actors and by a range of demand-side actors such as civil society, journalists and individual citizens – into making these laws work, and it is important to know what the results of these efforts have been. Equally importantly, it is only through evaluating implementation that we will be able to identify weaknesses and gaps and then address them.
The need for solid methodologies for evaluating implementation of these laws has been apparent to RTI activists for some time. However, the issue has been given significant impetus through the adoption of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In particular, Indicator 16.10.2 calls on States to adopt and implement RTI laws. Reliable, accepted methodologies are needed to assess the extent to which States have made progress in achieving the results called for in this Indicator. This Comprehensive Methodology provides a structured tool for assessing the quality of implementation of an RTI law. It was developed and piloted in Pakistan between 2017 and 2019 and has now been taken global.
Others have also sought to develop methodologies in this space. [Link to SDG 16.10.2 Page]. The difference with this Methodology is that it allows for far deeper assessment of the complex and difficult issues relating to RTI implementation than other methodologies. While this means that it requires more resources, it also means that the results will be more profound and thus more reliable as a source for efforts to improve implementation efforts.