India, China, and Indonesia are currently at different points in the development of formal legal rules concerning citizens' right of access to information, and particularly, to government information. India adopted the Right to Information Act in 2005, and has already accumulated useful experience in utilizing it to conduct social audits of government programs. China is poised to begin implementing its new Government Information Openness Regulations in May 2008. Indonesia's parliament on April 3, 2008 has just passed the Public Information Transparency Law.
Support for such legislation in all three countries has come from many quarters, and for many reasons. To some extent, support for such rules stems from the desire to increase the transparency and accountability of government at all levels from national to local. But access to government information offers many other public benefits, such as easier access to data and studies that can serve economic, social, educational, cultural, health and general human welfare purposes; monitoring of the effectiveness of particular policies or assessments of policy needs; and engaging better informed public discussion of public affairs. The experience of countries that have already adopted such legislation can be useful for those that are still contemplating it.
Legislation, however, is only the beginning of the process of making information openness a reality. Implementation methods for such policies need to be designed with a view towards social and economic priorities, constraints of institutional capacities and resources, and the channels and formats that are most accessible to the broadest possible public. Citizens' active use of the policies for a wide variety of purposes is also essential, making the policies a living reality and exploring creative information strategies that can improve governance, particularly in the arena of citizen-government interaction; heighten the capacities of individual civil society organizations; and strengthen civil society as a whole.
