This post is from Bank Information Center - Amplifying Local Voices to Democratize Development.
Without accessible and comprehensible information, stakeholders cannot meaningfully engage in development. Bank Information Center, Fundar-Center of Analysis and Research, Yemeni Observatory for Human Rights, and Egyptian Association for Collective Rights organized a session during the the World Bank Spring Meetings Civil Society Policy Forum titled “Breaking Down Barriers to Accessing Development Information”.
The panelists presented case studies and anecdotal evidence from Egypt, Mexico and Yemen to depict the challenges faced by civil society and affected communities when accessing information on development programs and project financed by the World Bank Group.
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The following list of recommendations to ensure that stakeholders can more easily access such information was discussed in this session:
- Identify Bank officials that can hold regional departments accountable for providing their constituencies accessible and comprehensible information.
- Attend to language barriers that are “easy fixes” on the Bank’s website and portals. The following are two examples of such barriers were mentioned: i) the instructions to create an account to submit an information request on the Bank’s online request portal are only in English, ii) regional programs, such as the Middle East North Africa Program, routinely posts documents in Arabic that are hidden behind a menu in English. Such barriers are hindering affected constituencies from accessing information readily available in their native languages.
- The Bank has a plethora of highly useful information readily available on its website. Therefore, it should share this with communities and CSOs by conducting in-country trainings on how to access to information on its website.
- Implement a policy on disseminating a flier in communities affected by its’ development projects in the local language. This flier should have information that discloses to communities that the Bank is funding a project in their area, their basic rights according to the Safeguards and links for more information.
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This article by Muna Rehman originally appeared on bicusa.org on April 22, 2016 at 11:41PM
