African democracy institute Idasa will be marking international Right to Know Day on 28 September with an emphasis on its Right to Know, Right to Education project, which aims to increase parental involvement in individual school governance structures.

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The Right to Know, Right to Education project seeks to improve poor children’s access to quality basic education by enhancing learners’ and their parents’ knowledge of and participation in decision-making at schools. The project aims to increase local and national stakeholders’ awareness of education rights and responsibilities and their understanding of the right to know in promoting rights-based education policies.

The five year project is aimed at children of poor and vulnerable parents in seven African countries in southern, eastern and western Africa.

Idasa is celebrating Right to Know Day with the screening of a documentary about participatory budgeting in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela. Beyond the actual day, Idasa’s commemoration of Right to Know day includes the screening of a documentary and a panel discussion in Cape Town on the importance of information in quality basic education in Argentina (9 October). It will also hold a meeting with the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria on the quest for quality basic education in Malawi (14 October) and South African Statistician General, Palil Lehohla, will talk on the centrality of information for citizen agency at the Idasa head office in Pretoria (20 October).

The seventh annual international Right to Know Day will be celebrated by civil society organisations from around the world. They will hold conferences on challenges to access to information and release reports on different aspects of open governance as well as awards for transparent public authorities and for civil society groups working to promote transparency in their countries.

Right to Know Day originated at a meeting on 28 September 2002 of freedom of information organisations in Sofia, Bulgaria. They created a network of Freedom of Information Advocates to promote the individual right of access to government-held information and to advocate for open, transparent governance that ensures the right to know how elected officials are exercising power and how taxpayers’ money is being spent. It is a day on which freedom of information activists from around the world promote this fundamental human right and campaign for open, democratic societies in which there is full citizen empowerment and participation in government.

Idasa believes that the citizen and his or her right of access to information are at the heart of a healthy democratic system. The right of access to information facilitates the ability of citizens to claim other rights (e.g. health, education). It enhances dialogue between citizens and their representatives and ensures transparency and accountability in the use of resources.

Without information, citizens live the lives assigned to them or lives of chance. With information, they choose their future.

For more information please contact Nancy Dubosse, Head of Research, Idasa’s Economic Governance Programme, on ndubosse@idasa.org.za or Francina Mhundwa, Head of Advocacy, Idasa’s Economic Governance Programme, on fmhundwa@idasa.org.za or phone them at 27 12 3920500.

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Post script: After the documentary screening on 28th September in Pretoria, the audience discussed issues about the nuances of participatory budgeting; e.g. whether the changes in regimes (Brazil and Venezuela) set the stage for more widespread participation in public budgets.  There was also discussion about the process by which communities identified priorities where there are diverging interests, and challenges associated with introducing participatory budgeting in South Africa, such as political will, a culture of individualism, and competing perspectives on leadership.

Click below to listen to the radio programme that EGP made to commemorate Right to Know Day.