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A Working Definition of “Open Government”

Global Integrity — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:36:10 +0000

(Editor's note: This was first posted over at Integrilicio.us.)

I’ve been spending a non-trivial amount of time lately watching and pondering the explosive uptake of the term “open government.” This probably isn’t too surprising given Global Integrity’s involvement in the nascent Open Government Partnership (OGP). As excited as I’ve been to witness the growth of OGP, the continued progress of the open data movement, and the emerging norms around citizen participation in government internationally, I’ve also been worrying that the longer we allow “open government” to mean any and everything to anyone, the risk increases that the term melts into a hollow nothingness of rhetoric.

My most immediate concern, which I’ve been chronicling of late over on this Tumblr, has been the conflation of “open data” with “open government,” an issue well-explored by Harlan Yu and David Robinson in this paper. I’ve also been publicly concerned about the apparent emphasis put on open data — seemingly at the expense of other open government-related priorities — by the current UK government, which is slated to take over the co-chairmanship of OGP shortly. (An excellent unpacking of those concerns can be found in this letter from leading UK NGOs to the government.)

But for all my griping, I’ve yet to put my money where my mouth is and offer up my own definition of what “open government” means. It’s time to fix that.

What follows is, at best, a rough working definition of open government that I hope spurs debate and conversation. This is certainly not 100% correct, all-encompassing, or definitive. Nor is it rocket science: this tracks fairly closely with others’ thinking, and I suspect it’s not too far outside of anyone’s mainstream definition (including the Open Government Declaration of September 2011).

At its core, “open government” to me means three things:

Information Transparency: that the public understands the workings of their government;
Public engagement: that the public can influence the workings of their government by engaging in governmental policy processes and service delivery programs; and
Accountability: that the public can hold the government to account for its policy and service delivery performance.

Into those three buckets we can then deposit many of the “open government” initiatives, programs, and interventions that are often invoked on their own as “open government.” What’s most important here, to me, is that none of these initiatives or interventions in and of themselves constitute “open government” alone. Rather, only when combined with the others do we truly see the potential for “open government” in its most powerful and holistic form.

Bucket 1 (Information Transparency): freedom of information initiatives; open data and Big [Public] Data efforts, including open data portals; procurement, budget, and policy transparency (e.g. voting records, meeting minutes, political finance transparency).

Bucket 2 (Public Engagement): e-government services; open311 and service delivery feedback loops; stakeholder fora and participatory processes (e.g. participatory budgeting, town hall meetings, both online and offline); electoral processes.

Bucket 3 (Accountability): anti-corruption mechanisms (e.g. auditing, ombudsmen); conflicts of interest and influence peddling safeguards.

It goes without saying that the world does not fit neatly into this clean paradigm. Electoral processes are as much a form of accountability as a form of engagement, and the distinction between information transparency and engagement blurs quickly when we talk about something like open311. But hopefully the general construct holds some water.

As for technology? I view technology agnostically in the context of “open government.” Some of the above interventions don’t work without technology — think open data, open311, or e-government services. Others work quite well without websites or apps. Technology can certainly be a powerful force multiplier in the context of open government, and it can take interventions to scale rapidly. But technology is neither open government itself nor required for open government to necessarily take hold, in my view.

Rather than dive any deeper into this, I’ll stop here to allow for others to correct, add to, or tear this apart. How would you define open government?

-- Nathaniel Heller

-- Image Credit: opensource.com

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Southeast Europe Struggles with Effective Law Enforcement

Global Integrity — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:38:50 +0000

Law enforcement agencies are considered key agents in peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction efforts. For that reason, massive resources from the international community have been channeled to democratizing and professionalizing police institutions in Southeast Europe.

However, although legal reforms of the police force have been fairly successful in the four Southeast European countries covered in the 2011 Global Integrity Report – Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Serbia –, the implementation and enforcement of these laws are found wanting in our latest assessment.

For instance, while in all these countries there is an agency with a legal mandate to investigate and prosecute cases of corruption among law enforcement officials, its effectiveness is weak. The number of investigations in Bosnia remains low, and those that are pursued focus on relatively minor cases while cases involving high-level corruption and politically powerful individuals are dropped or end in acquittals. The situation is similar in Macedonia.

Law enforcement agencies in the region also tend to be politicized. Recruitment and appointment of law enforcement personnel in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Serbia are susceptible to nepotism, patronage, and political interference. As our lead researcher notes of Bosnia, for example, “the prime minister […], the director of the key law enforcement agency, [and] the state investigation and protection agency [were] appointed as a result of an agreement among political leaders.” And while a new law may introduce a merit-based police force in Macedonia, “for the present […] it seems that party-based recruitment is the norm.”

It is evident, therefore, that the implementation gap between the laws “on the books” and their actual implementation/enforcement needs to be addressed in order to bolster the integrity system of law enforcement in Southeast Europe. The latest Global Integrity Report covering the region provides useful entry points for reformers.

-- Raymond June

-- Image Credit: Jonathan Davis

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It Turns Out We Love Politics…

Global Integrity — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:58:58 +0000

The public’s trust in politics is at an all time low, as various public opinion polls show. Or is it politicians that people mistrust? How to address these issues and restore the public’s trust in their elected officials? These questions were the focus of the 2012 Leadership Forum, organized by the State Legislative Leaders Foundation and Brown University in Providence on May 10-12.

The conference brought together around 50 legislative leaders from both political parties across the country, an equal number of private sector representatives, and civil society members working on government ethics and accountability. Stephen Lakis, President of the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, Teresa Paiva Weed, President of the Rhode Island Senate, Gordon Fox, Speaker of the Rhode Island House, and Angel Taveras, Mayor of Providence opened the conference.

The State Legislative Leaders Foundation invited Global Integrity and the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) to present the recently released findings of State Integrity Investigation (SII), an evaluation of effectiveness of anti-corruption mechanisms in all US states conducted by Global Integrity, CPI and Public Radio International.

The invitation was also recognition for Global Integrity and the Center’s efforts to engage reform-minded partners in state government and civil society to push for evidence-based reforms based on the SII. After the publication of the SII findings, Global Integrity and other partner organizations have been reaching out to state-level public officials, connecting decision-makers, institutions and civil society from different states so they can exchange knowledge and collaborate around SII findings.

In the Forum, Global Integrity and CPI discussed the methodology and how to use the 16,500 data entry points for state-level reforms. Demos was also invited to address the current ethics situation in the country. The presentations were followed by an intensive exchange of thoughts and ideas – some state legislators were supportive of the findings while others disputed them.

Because SII’s obvious primary finding is that there are basically no “winners” and that all states need to push harder for reforms in a number of anti-corruption areas, it was logical to expect that not all state representatives would be satisfied with the findings. However, SII’s goal was not to provide a prescription of reforms that need to be done. Rather, we hoped SII would start a long-needed dialogue between public officials, civil society and the public around a variety of areas in need of reform.

We are happy to say that we are finding an open ear among many legislators – and politicians in general – at this conference and in the many contacts we’ve had at various levels of government (see list of states where the State Integrity Investigation has sparked or accelerated reforms). We continue to be impressed by the level of enthusiasm and are pleased to hear most agree reforms are needed to ensure better public services.

But pursuing legislative reforms is not easy, especially in times when politics seems a dishonorable discipline and politicians are under heavy scrutiny. That is why Global Integrity is excited to fill a facilitator role.

We recognize that, above its invaluable role as a vigilant watchdog over government transparency, accountability and integrity, civil society can also actively contribute to finding solutions for the many issues state-level governments face.

The Leadership Forum was a step in that direction and, in that sense, it turns out we love politics…

-- Marko Tomicic

-- Image Credit: Marko Tomicic

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Eric Gundersen to Join Global Integrity Board of Directors

Global Integrity — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:18:59 +0000

Global Integrity is proud to announce the addition of Eric Gundersen, president and co-founder of Development Seed, to its board of directors effective immediately. Eric and Development Seed have been fixtures of the open source software and mapping communities for much of the past decade and will bring a fresh influx of technology experience and insight to the Global Integrity board.

“I’m elated that Eric has accepted the board’s offer to join us as a director,” said Global Integrity co-founder and Executive Director Nathaniel Heller. “As Global Integrity continues to make major investments in its Indaba fieldwork platform, Eric’s experiences and insights into building successful open source technology and software services will be invaluable.”

Gundersen is a recognized expert on open data and open source software and has been featured in publications including the New York Times, Nightline, NPR, and others. He is frequently invited to speak on topics including open data, data visualization, and open source business models and has presented at conferences such as SXSW, Where 2.0, GOSCON, and NodeJam. He earned his master’s degree in international development from American University in Washington, DC, and has dual bachelor’s degrees in economics and international relations. Gundersen co-founded Development Seed while researching technology access and microfinance in Peru.

"It's an honor to be working more closely with such an incredible team," said Gundersen. "Global Integrity is not only key to helping grow the open government and open data space, but it is leveraging its experience and network of parters to help governments and others 'go open' in the right way. We have some exciting challenges immediately ahead as this space rapidly expands. Global Integrity will be growing to scale its impact and its thought leadership. I look forward to bringing my open source product experience to the board and to working with Nathaniel and the team to help guide technology investments that make transparency actionable."

About Global Integrity: Global Integrity is an innovation lab that produces high-quality research and creates cutting-edge technology to advance the work of a global network of civic, public, and private reformers pursuing increased transparency and accountability in governments. In addition to our core team, we collaborate with a global network of more than 1,300 in-country contributors and partners who take our technologies, tools, and information to where they are most useful – the local level.

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Taking Stock of OGP

Global Integrity — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:15:55 +0000

The Open Government Partnership is officially afoot with the Articles of Governance formally approved and adopted at the first annual meeting in Brasilia last month. With distance gained from the meeting, this is a good moment to take stock of where the Partnership stands and the direction it needs to go.

First, governments should be commended for submitting their action plans regardless of the obligatory preening before the international community that accompanies them—national bombast is the indispensible currency of international summits after all (as one of our former bosses in the diplomatic service once commented, “There are no bad summits.”). The submission of the action plan is an important first step as it represents a very public commitment to a country’s national open government agenda. In Brasilia, 36 countries submitted their action plans and now will be expected to deliver on the commitments contained therein. By any standards, this is a significant achievement for a multilateral initiative that has not yet celebrated its first birthday.

But there are still big questions that need to be answered for the Open Government Partnership to maintain momentum after Brasilia 2012. The blog- and twitter-spheres have been abuzz with discussion on the Partnership’s promise and prospects. Two issues loom large for us (Disclosure: Global Integrity is responsible for implementing the Networking Mechanism for the Open Government Partnership):

1. Independent Review Mechanism: Beyond checking boxes

An essential but undeveloped component of the Open Government Partnership is the Independent Review Mechanism (IRM), the process through which countries will be held to account for their OGP commitments. The IRM is perhaps the most critical feedback loop that ensures accountability within the OGP.

The Steering Committee agrees on broad principles that should govern the work of the IRM: neutrality, independence, accountability, agility, and transparency. However, deeper questions encompassing the mechanics and modalities of implementation remain unanswered: Who comprises the IRM? What tools will be used to assess progress towards implementation of country action plans? How will the IRM use a standardized process to assess heterogeneous country commitments? Who will fund the envisioned domestic civil society reports that will form the basis for the IRM’s international expert panel’s assessments on each country’s progress towards implementation? How do you design the process to have teeth without it morphing into a counterproductive naming-and-shaming device?

Another big question is to what extent will the IRM assess outcomes and outputs. Measuring outputs (published open data sets, launched portals, civil society consultations) is often easier than outcomes. Evaluating governance outcomes (reduced corruption, improved service delivery, smarter budgetary allocations) are complex and politically contentious. At some point the tension between outputs and outcomes will need to be resolved. The design of the IRM must be flexible enough to support this crucial requirement as the OGP evolves.

To their credit, the Steering Committee recognizes that the IRM presents a challenge requiring immediate action and seems committed to addressing it. While it may still be early days for the Partnership, the IRM is the linchpin of accountability that the Open Government Partnership must get right. Otherwise, the OGP could quickly unravel courtesy of a paralyzing lack of credibility.

2. Open Data: Giving governments an opportunity to put the cart before the horse

The reflexive tendency to conflate open government reforms with open data initiatives remains a cause for concern. Global Integrity wrote about this before and continues to watch developments in this space. We highly recommend this paper by Harlan Yu and David Robinson for those more deeply interested in the distinction.

We suspected that the growing appeal of technological solutions to governance challenges would eventually bleed into countries’ OGP commitments. We weren’t wrong. A quick analysis of commitments using preliminary data from the OGP Support Unit shows that of the 24 countries that submitted their commitments in machine-readable format prior to Brasilia, 50 out of 325 commitments (over 15%) are open data initiatives. Far more than any other commitment type made by OGP governments, the second most common commitment was e-government initiatives (49), followed by access to information (39) commitments.

Fetishizing open data projects could crowd out the appetite for arguably more fundamental, higher priority reforms. Particularly in the context of a multilateral initiative like the OGP, in which no country wants to be seen as the laggard, country commitments will naturally gravitate towards programs where success can be demonstrated easily. Open data initiatives are rarely as politically contentious as freedom of information laws or political finance reforms.

That is not to say that the low hanging fruit of open data should not be picked. Open data initiatives can be incredibly useful tools situated within a program of appropriately sequenced open government reform. However, the pursuit of open data as an end in itself and not as a means towards other reforms can lead to a technological myopia of sorts.

Case in point: the Philippines made a specific OGP commitment to develop a “Single Portal for Government Information,” which complies with open data standards. However, when it comes to Freedom of Information, the language gets fuzzy. There is a commitment to greater access to government information but no specific commitment to the passage of the proposed Freedom of Information Act, which, if passed, would be a significant leap towards more open government with far-reaching impact. Admittedly, the Aquino administration cannot make a promise that requires direct action by the Philippines legislature. (This raises a related point: the OGP should encourage greater involvement of the legislative branch—and for that matter, all branches of government beyond the purview of the Executive—as many of the transparency reforms contemplated will require legislative action).

Or take the case of India where the Right to Information Act has done more to change the culture of the sclerotic Indian bureaucracy and advance government accountability than the most ambitious open data project ever could. We recommend this paper for further analysis of why the time may not be ripe for pushing for an Indian open data initiative.

These questions are few of the many that citizens and civil society seeks answers to, and they cannot be answered by an annual conference. Steering the crowded and unwieldy ship of the Open Government Partnership will likely be a slow and iterative process. Broadly speaking, the Partnership is about changing norms, transforming the culture of government, and recalibrating government’s relationship with its citizens, which, if we’re being realistic, is a generational endeavor to say the least. By asking difficult questions during these early stages of the Partnership’s evolution, we can design an Open Government Partnership that citizens want rather than what governments need.

-- Abhinav Bahl

-- Photo Credit: Nicole Anand

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flatorb — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:50:26 +0000

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Indaba: What Our Field Contributors “Really” Think About Our Research Tool

MonikaS — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:15:07 +0000

Over the last few months, Global Integrity wrapped up research from two major projects, The State Integrity Investigation (SII) and The Global Integrity Report (GIR). Therefore, we wanted to take some time to reflect, capturing lessons learned and feedback from our field contributors on each project. Specifically, we wanted to capture their thoughts on our methodology (captured in an earlier post GIR11 Contributor Survey Results) and how well our technology platform used in both projects, Indaba, performed. We sent them a brief online survey complete, the results of which are captured in this post.

Indaba is a browser-based software-as-a-service (soon to be open sourced) that allows geographically distributed teams to create, edit, review and publish original content, such as policy scorecards or citizen audits. This content can include text, quantitative data, and uploaded files of any type. It allows for project managers to easily manage workflows of projects and compile research over a variety of data points or units of analysis. Over the last year we have begun working with a much broader range of partners (both internal and external) to conduct research on the platform. We thought this was a good moment to ask what our partners around the world thought about Indaba as a means of conducting research.

Here at Global Integrity, we are constantly using Indaba and training our partners and contributors on its features. We hear both the complements and the “not so pretty” Indaba reactions. So we found the results of these surveys refreshing – even though the projects were different in their scope and nature; the role that Indaba played in supporting their work remained basically the same. Altogether, we received 133 responses from project contributors.

We were pleasantly surprised to learn that 88% of the total respondents thought Indaba worked well, and 94% thought the technical instructions provided by Global Integrity were sufficient in helping them understand how to use the platform. Eight-eight percent of respondents said Indaba was easy to use.

Some of the respondents’ favorite things about Indaba were: “its clean interface,” “being able to scroll down through questions,” “the interaction between different users,” “its flexibility to permit revisions and corrections,” “ability to monitor one’s progress,” “it is a secure platform,” “very straight forward to use/no frustrations or lost work,” “the possibility of saving my work up to the completion of the report and the instant submission of the report upon completion,” “checking progress status to see how far I had to go in any area I was working on,” “the ability to save and come back,” and “it helped me stay organized.”

When asked what was the most challenging thing about using Indaba, our contributors had a variety of responses: “forgetting to save my work and then losing it sometimes,” “finding where I left off,” “navigation could be clearer,” “lack of an overview of all of the [survey] questions - the navigation between questions was a pain and equally frustrating to copy/save information from it,” “it was difficult to jump around for those who don't necessarily think in linear order,” “the progress and completion markers and deadlines were not clear,” “it was sometimes hard to gauge how close the project was to completion,” “having to be online the whole time,” and “accessing with poor Internet connectivity.”

Overall, we think Indaba is a great platform. It was reassuring to learn that while there are some challenges remaining (which we are fully aware of and addressing in a huge Indaba 2012 upgrade), the majority of the contributors on these two projects thought the system suited their needs.

Thank you to the hundreds of our contributors around the world that provided us with critical feedback. The full results from both surveys can be found attached.

This blog is cross posted on our www.GetIndaba.org website here.

-- Global Integrity

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GIR11 Contributor Survey Results

Global Integrity — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:06:00 +0000

Global Integrity tries to be transparent about its work, from our methodologies and data to our sources of funding. We recently finished a survey of our team of field contributors involved in the production of the Global Integrity Report 2011, and we’re happy to share those results publicly. Keeping our field contributors happy and engaged is a major priority for us, so we highly value their feedback. In a short survey, we asked them to rate several aspects of their experience working on the Global Integrity Report 2011, including the methodology, training, staff support, our tools, and their compensation. We received responses from 72 field contributors: 20 lead reporters, 18 lead researchers, 31 country peer reviewers, and 3 regional peer reviewers.

We were proud to learn that respondents generally enjoyed working with us (97%), that GI staff responded quickly (92%), and that they would work with us again (94%). Contributors left us gratifying comments like “I found the process quite inspiring and informative,” and “My relationship with Staff couldn’t have been better.” As many of our contributors go on to seek other governance-related opportunities, we were encouraged by one contributor’s comment that “Global Integrity has enhanced my career.” Another contributor wrote to us, “I have learned a lot working with Global Integrity. As an International Relations graduate student too, I am confident I can handle research concepts, organization techniques and simplicity of report writing.”

Respondents also told us that our specialized fieldwork platform, Indaba, worked well (94%) and was easy to use (94%) – but look for more on the Indaba usage experience soon in a separate post.

Despite such flattering feedback, respondents let us know where they think we can improve. For one, some contributors didn’t think they received clear and complete instructions about our methodology (13%), and several of them gave us suggestions on what we can do to improve the fieldwork process in the future. We’re already working to provide a better explanation of our methodology, and to revise our training materials with clearer, more specific examples. We’re also planning to fine-tune our scoring criteria.

Although most respondents reported understanding what was expected of them when they signed their contract (98%), we also received the perennial critique that compensation was not commensurate with the level of effort required for the project. That is, they wished we could pay more. So do we.

Some of the respondents raised questions about the limits of our indicators. One contributor commented, “Many questions do not apply to my country, they should be omitted when calculating the final scores.” Others told us we should “customize the survey questions to countries,” and that the “one size fits all aspect of the indicators can be frustrating because desired score cannot be correctly reflected.” While we understand those concerns, the nature of the Global Integrity Report approach has always been to evaluate countries on the same set of criteria regardless of their political system, history, or level of economic development. We view the questions we ask through the Global Integrity Report methodology to be universally applicable, based on both theory and our own experience.

We’re especially grateful for our contributors’ feedback – an invaluable piece of the big picture – as we take a step back to reevaluate and conceive of new ways to build on the methodology and data collection of our flagship report.

-- Global Integrity

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‘Who Said What’ at OGP in Brasilia

Global Integrity — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0000

These are the phrases that stuck with us a few days after the first annual Open Government Partnership (OGP) meeting in Brasilia, in which new OGP governments presented their Action Plans and members of civil society discussed their role in ensuring government commitments are met.

Government

“Efficiency and integrity, efficiency and sound use of public resources, efficiency and combating corruption are two sides of same coin and must go together.”

Dilma Rousseff, President, Brazil

"Transparency is difficult, it's risky, it's uncomfortable at times - but it sticks, once you start you cannot go back."

Francis Maude, Cabinet Office Minister, U.K.

“Some say media is too free to a fault in my country.”

Jakaya Kikwete, President, Tanzania

"A quarter of the world's people now live in OGP countries.”

Hilary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State, U.S.

(In response to the question, ‘What does Open Government mean to you?’): “It means I can take control of my life.”

Tim Kelsey (Incoming OGP Co-Chair), Director of Transparency, U.K.

“We used to say ‘be careful, the walls have ears.’ That was the environment of secrecy that we have stepped away from.”

Ben Abbes, Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tunisia

“Technology is neither necessary nor sufficient.”

Samantha Power, Special Assistant to President Barack Obama, U.S.

“What motivates us to pursue participatory budgeting? It promotes a philosophy of depoliticization and a much needed culture of participation.”

Florencio Butch Abad, Secretary of Budget and Management, Philippines

Civil Society

“It is difficult to present after South Korea. My government decided not to be here today. In South Korea, I can probably not only file an e-petition, but also do it in my own language, Mongolian.”

Namkhaijantsan Dorjdari, Open Society Forum, Manager, Mongolia

“We need to ask ourselves if we are creating spaces for ordinary citizens to have practical ways in which they can interface with their governments.”

Rakesh Rajani, (member of the OGP Steering Committee), Twaweza, Founder, Tanzania

“The Right to Information (RTI) is a necessary piece of legislation as it was demanded for by the people. Its success has been an ability to change the culture of bureaucracy.”

Nikhil Dey, (member of the OGP Steering Committee), MKSS, India

“It is the interplay of technology and citizens that starts creating opportunities, many of which we have not yet realized.”

Warren Krafchik (incoming civil society co-chair), International Budget Partnership, Director

-- Nicole Anand

-- Image Credit: Nicole Anand

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Access to information in Health Care Service Delivery in Papua New Guinea

Global Integrity — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:38:45 +0000

Global Integrity, in close collaboration with the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the Consultative Implementation and Monitoring Council (CIMC) in Papua New Guinea (PNG), has recently completed an indicator-based expert assessment of access-to-information in health care service delivery in PNG. The objective of the pilot assessment is to identify access-to-information issues that have been theorized to play an important role in determining whether service delivery beneficiaries are empowered (or not) to demand improved services in health care at the provincial level in PNG and to hold providers accountable for their performance. The preliminary results of this assessment suggest that it is premature to conclude whether and why citizen access to and use of information can hold providers accountable (complementary analytic tools need to be mobilized to obtain a more conclusive sense). Nevertheless, we argue that our data do provide a window into what information gaps exist. As such, this pilot study can potentially serve as a diagnostic tool for identifying and cataloguing informational lacunae.

The health sector in PNG faces several problems, including high infant and maternal mortality rates, infectious diseases (including tuberculosis and HIV), and acute shortage of resources such as essential drugs. The challenges associated with poor physical access and infrastructure make service delivery expensive and out-of-reach to many citizens, especially rural populations. These problems are compounded by a decentralized and fragmented health care system that has led to a lack of coordination and oversight of responsibilities between national and provincial/district government agencies, hospitals, health clinics, civil society organizations (CSOs), and budget institutions. The passage of the Organic Law in 1994-95 attenuated the central government’s ability to implement national policies by making provinces responsible for handling primary health care services. However, the management of hospitals, pharmaceutical purchases, and oversight remains the responsibility of the (weak) national government. From this, a cumbersome bureaucracy was born (or exacerbated).

Some of our preliminary findings include:

• The national capital of Port Moresby earned the lowest overall rating of all the provinces assessed in the study;

• The strongest performing category across all the provinces was the legal framework on the availability, accessibility, and usability of information on health care, as well as the existence of information on quality of performance;

• The lowest rated category was the level of information around citizen participation in the decision-making process of health care service delivery.

You can find the complete report, including a more fulsome description of our methodology, here.

-- Raymond June

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