Global Transparency Initiative (GTI)

The GTI brings together two communities of activists and experts from around the world: those groups campaigning for full accountability in the use of public power vested in the IFIs, and groups that have been campaigning for the right to access to information at the nation-state level. Member organisations undertake projects such as:

• Drafting a Transparency Charter setting out the standards and norms that should govern IFI disclosure policy, and the principles that should guide its practice. "Claiming our Right to Know" was launched on September 17 2006 in Batam, Indonesia, on the occasion of the International People's Forum vs. the IMF and the World Bank. The Charter is the GTI's flagship statement of the standards to which IFI information disclosure policies should conform and a key advocacy tool for the promotion of more progressive policies. The GTI is encouraging CSOs to add their name to the growing list of groups that have endorsed the Charter, which is available below in English, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Russian, and Arabic.
• Development of an online IFI Transparency Resource which compares the transparency standards of 10 IFIs in an effort to identify best practice, develop a comprehensive vision for transparency reforms, and help interested organisations and individuals access relevant information. The data in the Resource deconstruct IFI operations into 13 broad categories (governing bodies, policies and strategies, the lending cycle, etc.) which in turn are further broken down into almost 250 indicators of transparency. The IFI Transparency Resource not only contains comprehensive data on the transparency of IFI operations and projects, but also provides users with a library of related resources, including: IFI disclosure policies, civil society reports, useful websites, and more.
• Case studies and transparency audits illustrating how transparency, or lack thereof, has contributed to positive and negative outcomes.
• Comparative legal studies looking at specific exceptions of particular importance to IFI openness.
• Coordinated requests for information from IFIs using domestic Freedom of Information legislation - The GTI, led by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), launched a series of coordinated freedom of information (FOI) requests in Argentina, Bulgaria, Mexico, Slovakia, and South Africa in 2005, which were tracked over a set period of time. A total of 120 requests were submitted by 9 participating organisations to different IFIs and government implementing agencies in their regions. The requests were for 2 main categories of information: documents regarding institutional and policy decisions, and documents related to specific projects in the 5 countries. The findings of the study are contained in a publication entitled Behind Closed Doors: Secrecy in International Financial Institutions launched in September 2006. Overall, only 22% of information requests resulted in full disclosure.
• Advocacy around ongoing IFI disclosure policy reviews - The GTI seeks to add value to the IFI transparency debate by bringing lessons and analyses from the national freedom to information movement to policy and project discussions at the IFIs. Through a number of coordinated advocacy missions, members of the GTI have met face-to-face with decision-makers at the World Bank, European Investment Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and IMF. The "Related Resources" available toward the bottom of the page, here, include a number of letters and other advocacy materials in which the GTI has been involved.
• Providing small grants to individuals and organisations in developing countries already involved in IFI transparency issues and interested in playing an active role in the GTI.

Here is an example of a specific GTI action, which illustrates the strategies indicated above. In advance of the 2008 annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank, GTI launched a policy brief demanding a complete overhaul of the IMF's disclosure rules. Having found that IMF fails to meet 5 of the 9 principles in the GTI Charter and only partially meets the other 4, GTI argues that the IMF should use the upcoming transparency policy review, scheduled for 2009, to make a bold move towards recognising the right to information. The brief recommends 11 specific changes to document and information access across a range of document types, including policy papers, archives, and board documents. At the same time, the GTI released an updated guide to Transparency at the IMF. The September 2008 version of the guide is an attempt to help civil society learn how to use the information held by the IMF, as well as to provide an insight into the improvements that could be made in the IMF's transparency policy.

Democracy and Governance.