A new access to information policy established by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is now in operation provisionally, according to an announcement by the ICT focused UN agency this week.
According to the ITU the policy is a commitment to make more information and documents it holds, generates and manages openly available online.
Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary-General says implementation of policy, assented to by the ITU's governing Council in 2016, will enhance transparency of the organisation's decision-making processes.
"The ITU Council decision provides more information and insight into ITU's working methods and decision-making procedures to the general public and promotes greater transparency and accountability. One of the powers of ICTs is their ability to make organisations more trustworthy. ITU aims to lead by example."
The ITU claims that the policy will bring it in line with other international organisations including the World Bank, UNDP, and UNESCO.
Noteworthy provisos
While the new policy will ensure public access to ITU input documents, summaries of decisions, reports and other output documents, several non-disclosures have been included "where disclosure might cause potential harm to a legitimate private or public interest," according to section 3.1 of the policy.
The information to be excluded includes ITU information related to investigation reports or to disciplinary proceedings, knowledge that might endanger security of members of ITU or prejudice the security as well as commercial, financial, scientific or technical information where disclosure would harm either the financial interests of ITU or members of ITU.
The ITU boasts a membership of 193 countries (44 from Africa) and over 700 private-sector entities and academic institutions. Access to information that is not already available through ITU's public-access website and not excluded from access by the public can be obtained by contacting the ITU directly for such information to be provided at a fee.
"This process will be a standard feature of ITU's main conferences and meetings in the coming years, including ITU Council Working Groups, ITU Advisory Groups Meetings, the upcoming World Telecommunication Development Conference 2017 and the ITU principle governing body, the quadrennial Plenipotentiary Conference, the next one of which is scheduled for the last quarter in 2018," added the ITU in its announcement.
The new access to information policy is subject to final approval by the ITU's Plenipotentiary Conference in 2018.
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