News
International: PESHAWAR: Friday, June 21, 2019.
The
Paris Peace Forum has chosen Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s project, from among the
provinces and the country, to assess the implementation and evolution of the
Right to Information Act 2013 in the province.
The
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Commission (KPIC) has submitted the project to
assess the implementation of the RTI Act ensuring people’s right to access
information held by the public bodies.
It
was part of the whole host of over 700 projects submitted to the Forum, the
Forum said on its Website.
The
selection of the project “Evaluation of right to Information Implementation in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan” came as part of the initiative of the Forum to
advance governance solutions across the world particularly where the governance
environment is not what it should have been over the last few years, it further
said.
The
forum in its citation of the project said, “Secrecy has been the rule, and the
disclosure of information an exception, throughout the history of Pakistan.
“Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa became the first province to develop an effective Right to
Information (RTI) law with the aim to ensure the citizen’s constitutional right
by providing access to the information held by public bodies. “The process has
predominantly dragged attention to corruption and exposed potholes in the
system.”
The
Paris Peace Forum, it said, continues to demonstrate that in a deteriorated
international environment it is still possible to advance governance solutions,
scale-up projects and launch new initiatives in peace and security,
development, environment, new technologies, inclusive economy, culture and
education, etc.
For
its second edition, the “Call for Projects” of the Paris Peace Forum has
received more than 700 project submissions from 115 countries and led by a wide
panel of actors of global governance, such as states, international
organisations, NGOs, companies, foundations, philanthropic organisations,
development agencies, religious groups, trade unions, think tanks and
universities.
The
Selection Committee evaluated all submissions and made its choice based on
geographical and gender-balanced representation, it informed. The Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa with the technical support of the Centre for Law and Democracy
(CLD), a Canada-based organisation and other stakeholders including German
Development Cooperation and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, has
already developed the first-ever methodology to assess and evaluate the
implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) law in the country.
Toby
Mendel, the executive director, CLD, led the team to develop the methodology
and provide assistance for the training of the trainers (ToTs) for the
methodology. This is the first time that such a methodology would be put into
practice anywhere in the world and the core development work on it has been
done in Pakistan to assess the extent to which RTI laws are being properly implemented
and looks at both oversight bodies Information Commissions and public
authorities.
The
assessment of the RTI Law and RTI practices in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will in a
tangible manner evaluate the implementation level and scale of the Law in the
province while it may also be exercised in other provinces and at the federal
level to asses RTI Law implementation across the country. It will also provide
evidence of claims that implementation of the RTI Law in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has
changed a “culture of secrecy” which remained prevalent in the country over the
seven decades.
.JPG)
.JPG)
