THE ACCESS INITIATIVE

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THE ACCESS INITIATIVE
Side Event - PCII Jan 31, 2002
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What is TAI?

• An Initiative to promote national-level access to
  information, participation and justice in
  decisions
• A global coalition of public interest groups
• A method to track governments progress in
  improving participation
• A source of information about global trends in
  participation as it is practiced by countries
• A set of common participation milestones.

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TAI Partners

• Core team
• The World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C.,
  USA
• The Environmental Management and Law Association,
  Budapest, Hungary
• The Thailand Environment Institute, Bangkok,
  Thailand
• Corporacion Participa, Santiago, Chile
• Partners
• 28 NGOs from Chile, Hungary, India, Indonesia,
  Mexico, Thailand, South Africa, Uganda, USA

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Activities leading to WSSD

• Indicators to assess status of access to
  information, participation, and justice in
  decision-making
• National assessments
• Global report based on national assessments and
  a global public opinion poll
• How-To Guide
• Outreach at the national, regional, and global
  level.

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What do we measure?

• National access law recognition of rights,
  provisions for implementation, and enforcement
  governing access to decisions
• Access to general information about the
  environment information in emergencies,
  information about air and water quality, state of
  environment reports, facility-level information
• Access to decisions timing and quality of
  information and participation in decisions on
  policies, plans, siting of projects, and
  permitting
• Government efforts to build capacity of the
  public for meaningful participation.

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Progress

• Bilateral and international cooperation and
  agreements have spurred national-level access to
  decisions over the last 10 years
• The legal framework in largely in place in the 9
  countries and demonstrates political will to
  implement commitments.

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Weaknesses

• Access to justice is the weakest element of the
  participation system
• Implementation and practice lag behind the law
  due to unspecified procedures, definitions, and
  mandates
• Participation happens too late and too little to
  influence decisions.

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Variations among countries

• Resource availability influences focus of
  efforts poorer countries focus on participation,
  middle and high-income countries build access to
  information infrastructure.
• Countries have different starting points.
• While most countries are opening up, the US is
  closing down.

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What will support implementation?

• Governments should commit to common milestones
  and common indicators to identify gaps in
  national systems for participation and promote
  action
• Civil society and governments should collaborate
  in measuring effort to common milestones
• The international community and donor countries
  should commit to development assistance for
  capacity building by governments and civil
  society in developing countries
• The international community and national
  governments should support national civil society
  efforts to track progress and develop the access
  system.