Measuring Access to Information, Participation, and Justice

How well are governments upholding the commitments they made at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to strengthen public participation in environmental decision-making? Are they making sufficient effort to include the poor? Answering these questions requires assessing a nation’s governance performance so that it can be tracked over time and compared with good practices in other nations. Since 2000, The Access Initiative (TAI),a global coalition of civil-society groups, has worked to insure this basic level of government accountability. Using a shared methodology, TAI coalition members conduct national-level assessments of laws and practices regarding public access to information, participation, and justice. For complete assessment results, visit http://www.accessinitiative.org/.