Photo Credit: Peter Essick
For eight years, WRI and 160 partners in 40 countries have been working to open up the channels of information on environmental decision-making. This effort – The Access Initiative – is the largest global action network dedicated to ensuring that people have the right and the ability to influence decisions about the natural resources on which their communities depend.
How does it work? Coalitions of civil society groups assess the state of access to
information, public participation, and justice in their nation. Gaps in laws,
institutions, and practices are identified. The coalitions then engage their
government in a dialogue and develop campaigns to bring about reform.
It isn’t easy, especially in Southeast Asia where leaders have long kept
political control through information control. Eight years of work by
The Access Initiative, however, came to fruition recently when Indonesia
enacted a new Freedom of Information Act. The Access Initiative also
played a strong role in ensuring Thailand’s new constitution enshrines the
right of the public to have information about new development projects
that affect the environment and to participate in decisions concerning such
projects. Rights to remedies are provided when the government acts in
breach of these provisions.