Frances Seymour World Resources Institute Environment, Poverty, and the MCC Conference

1. Frances Seymour World Resources Institute Environment, Poverty, and the MCC Conference June 24, 2005

2. The Access Initiative …is a global civil society coalition promoting public access to information, participation, and justice in national decision-making that affects the environment.

3. International Commitments 1992 178 governments sign the Rio Declaration. Principle 10 mandated appropriate access to information, encouragement of public participation, and effective access to judicial proceedings. 2002 WSSD Plan of Implementation calls on governments to implement Principle 10.

4. The Access Initiative’s goal… …is to promote the accelerated and enhanced implementation of Principle 10 in countries around the world.

5. How decisions get made Who gets a seat at the table What is decided Why focus on procedure?

6. Processes that provide: Access to Information Participation in Decisions Mechanisms for Accountability Decisions that are more likely to be: Equitable Environmentally Sustainable Actually Implemented Processes drive outcomes lead to

7. The Access Initiative’s identity is… …a global civil society coalition led by a regionally-structured “Core Team” of six organizations, with WRI serving as global secretariat.

8. The Access Initiative’s strategy is to… • Develop and continuously refine an indicator-based tool to assess government performance • Support civil society teams in an increasing number of countries to conduct assessments • Utilize the Partnership for Principle 10 to urge governments to act on assessment results

9. What does TAI attempt to assess? • Access to information • Public participation • Access to justice • Capacity building Both law and practice related to:

10. With what results? • Enhanced credibility for civil society critiques • Platforms for constructive government-civil society dialogue and collaboration • Explicit commitments from all participants to improve law, practice, and capacity

11. At what cost? • In-country costs of conducting an assessment on the order of $30,000 • Rapid expansion in Latin America and Eastern Europe demonstrate capacity to scale up

12. Acting on Assessment Results Through the Partnership for Principle 10, NGOs, international organizations, and governments make specific commitments to improve performance

13. November 2000: First workshop Early 2001: Assessment method and organizational structure developed Late 2001-2002: Method tested in 9 countries September 2002: Pilot results and PP10 launched at WSSD 2003: Method refined (Versions 1.0 and 1.1) 2004: Expansion to new countries ramps up 2005: Version 2.0 in development 2006: TAI active in at least 40 countries A Brief History of TAI

14. TAI Pilot Test Countries Chile Hungary India Indonesia Mexico South Africa Thailand Uganda United States (CA and OH)

15. Expanding the Network: 2003 - 2006 Europe:Bulgaria,Estonia, Germany,Ireland,Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania,Poland, Portugal, Ukraine, United Kingdom Africa: Cameroon, Kenya,Malawi, Tanzania,Zambia,Zimbabwe Latin America:Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Peru, Venezuela Asia: Philippines, Vietnam Repeat assessments:Chile,Hungary, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, United States

16. The TAI MethodologyAssessing Access to Information, Participation, and Justice for the Environment: A Guide CD-ROM of Version 1.1

17. The TAI Methodology • information disclosure • public participation • access to justice • investments in capacity-building The TAI methodology provides more than 100 indicators to assess government performance in providing…

18. Law Questions about the presence and quality of the legal framework Practice Questions about the presence, timing, ease, regularity and scope of practice Similar questions about practice in providing different types of information or participation in different decisions What does the methodology measure?

19. Simplify and cluster indicators around fewer, bigger issues Identify priority indicators Create a flexible software that allows researchers to add new indicators Move to a web-based application Improve indicators for capacity-building and access to justice Add indicators to capture “effectiveness” Objectives for Version 2.0

20. TAI and MCC Criteria Developed by independent third party Utilizes objective and high quality data Analytically rigorous and publicly available Broad country coverage and comparable across countries Clear link to growth and poverty reduction Policy-linked (governments can influence on 2-3 year horizon) Broad consistency in results from year to year

21. Possible interim indicators for MCC 1-2 year horizon: Has government cooperated with an independent assessment of performance? 3-4 year horizon: Has government responded to the results with specific commitments to address identified gaps? 5-6 year horizon: Has government showed progress between the first and second assessments?

22. To learn more Visit www.accessinitiative.org and www.pp10.org for information on TAI and its related initiative, the Partnership for Principle 10.