The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is sponsoring a webinar which will be hosted by the World Bank institute on Tuesday, February 19, 2013. The webinar which is about Proactive Transparency is scheduled to start at 3:00 – 4:00 PM (15:00 GMT).
The Webinar is an initiative of the OGP Networking Mechanism to encourage peer learning and knowledge sharing on critical open government issues among civil society, government, and private sector participants.
Some of the key questions which will be asked at the Webinar are:
1. Does the right of access to information imply that governments must publish information without an access to information request?
2. Which information should be prioritized? What types of information are becoming emerging international standards as part of government obligations to publish proactive information?
3. What is the relationship between “open data” and proactively published information?
4. What are good practices from different countries around the world?
5. What should the proactive publication priorities be for countries which are members of the Open Government Partnership?
The presenters for the webinar are Helen Darbishire (Executive Director, Access Info Europe) and Kevin Dunion (Executive Director, Center for Freedom of Information, University of Dundee)
Ms Darbishire is a human rights activist specializing in the public’s right of access to information (freedom of information), and the development of open and democratic societies with participatory and accountable governments. She is the founder and Executive Director of the Madrid-based NGO Access Info Europe, established in 2006 to promote the right of access to information in Europe and globally. She has worked for over 20 years as a human rights professional, focusing on issues of freedom of expression and information, media freedom, civil society development, and democratization.
Mr. Dunion is an Honorary Professor and Executive Director of the Centre for Freedom of Information at the School of Law, University of Dundee, which has been established as a research and resource centre for Information Commissioners and Ombudsmen as well as those who wish to engage with current appellate and enforcement practice. He is also a Visiting Professor at Northumbria University, England.
Ms Darbishire will review recent developments concerning the right of access to information and Open data, evaluate how this relates to the right of access of information and summarize the global trends with respect to proactive publication with a focus on the classes of information which are being published. It will also cover other laws that are required to be made public. Finally she will discuss advocacy strategies that can be pursued by civil society to promote greater proactive publication and how to structure dialogue with governments over how to prioritize information due for release.
Mr. Dunion will present as case study the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) that requires the Scottish public authorities to proactively publish information, in which case, each authority must produce a Publication Scheme that has been approved by the Scottish Information Commissioner. He will then show how the Information Commissioner resolved matters by producing a single Model Publication Scheme, which can be adopted by any authority. The Model Scheme describes classes of information which should be disclosed, providing a high degree of proactive openness and making it easy for authorities to comply with the law.
To register for the session kindly click here.
Participants are expected to login 5 minutes before the Webinar is scheduled to start.
