The election nominees for the next steering committee of the FOIAnet have now been finalised. Thirteen members of organizations of the FOIAnet have proposed themselves as ready to help steer the network over the next period and ensure that it meets the needs of its members. Member organizations will now have one week, from Monday 19^th – Monday 26^th July to vote for those who they feel will best help support FOIAnet.

The FOIAnet steering committee has seven members at any one time. Member organizations will each be able to vote for seven of the nominees. The nominee who receives the most votes will become the new chair of the Steering Committee.

Below you will find a list of the nominees, by clicking on their name you will be taken to a page with their biography and statement of interest.

1. Andrea Figari

2. Codru Vrabie

3. Eduardo Bertoni

4. Emilene Martínez Morales

5. Fola Adeleke

6. Gergana Jouleva

7. Gilbert Sendugwa

8. Said Essoulami

9. Sharon Polsky

10. Shushan Doydoyan

11. Sohini Paul

12. Taranath Dahal

13. Toby Mendel

See here for the document with full election details.

See here for members of past Steering Committees.

On Friday 2nd July nominations open for the election of a new steering committee of the FOIAnet .The FOIAnet Steering Committee oversees the management and development of the FOIAnet. It is composed of seven individual members who come from member organisations, one of which will become the chair of the committee.

The schedule for the elections is as follows:

1) Nominations for Steering Committee – opens 2nd July, deadline Thursday 15th July 2010
2) Voting opens Monday 19th July 2010 – Monday 26th July
3) New SC announced Tuesday 27th July - first conference call convened early September 2010.

For full details of the elections see the detailed election document.

Detailed Election Document

Campaigners have been trying to get an FOI law passed in the Philippines for some 14 years, so far without success. On Monday, 24 May 2010, they came tantalisingly close. A progressive bill had gone through all but one of the complex steps towards being adopted, and awaited only final ratification by the House of Representatives, and then signature into law by the President (it had already received final ratification by the Senate and over 180 of the 242 members of the House had already voted in favour of a similar bill). Unfortunately, the Speaker of the House, Prospero Nograles, did not allow a vote to proceed on Monday. Hope that the document would be passed on 31 May was also scotched, due to a lack of quorum in the House. The incoming (15th) Congress will have to start the legislative process again from the beginning.

The Philippines has a constitutional guarantee of the right to information, which has been used to some effect to gain access to information held by public bodies. But full enjoyment of this right, as in other countries, depends on the adoption of right to information legislation. An intense advocacy campaign has been waged over the last few months in the Philippines, in an effort to finally get the law passed. As part of the final push for adoption, 67 organisations and 21 individuals, mostly members of foianet or IFEX, signed a letter urging the House to pass the bill into law. The letter gained widespread coverage in the mainstream Philippine media.

Letter urging government to pass a law in the Philipine government

Participants from the African Regional Conference on the Right of Access to Information today released the Regional Findings and Plan of Action to advance the right in Africa. The conference found that while access to information is a fundamental human right, political and institutional constraints in Africa have limited the opportunities to exercise the right. Taking into account the realities of Africa, the regional document serves as an annex to the global Atlanta Declaration and Plan of Action.

"Facing historical and unique challenges, African nations have found it particularly difficult to advance the right of access to information," said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who chaired the opening day of the conference that took place Feb. 7-9, 2010, in Accra, Ghana. "Unlike in other regions of the world, there has not been a wave of countries passing and implementing access to information laws. In Africa, only five countries have passed laws, and this number includes Zimbabwe, which many have argued uses its law to repress rather than provide information."