ATI projects around the world

Access to information has never been more widely established in law, yet across every region the defining challenge is the same: the gap between that legal architecture and its everyday practice. This is exactly the pattern the UNCAC Implementation Review Mechanism captures through its recommendations under Article 10 on public reporting and Article 13 on the participation of society - and it is why the next phase of the review should treat proactive publication and accessible public data as the real test of whether the right to information works.

The advances are genuine. Legal coverage kept expanding and consolidating, from new laws taking effect to long-stalled bills finally moving, while regional and international frameworks on transparency and proactive disclosure gained ground. But a law on the books is not yet a functioning right. The review makes the point in hard numbers: the large majority of states with completed second-cycle reviews received recommendations on public reporting and on public participation, reflecting the same obstacles everywhere - delayed or ignored requests, broad exemptions, thin proactive disclosure, and under-resourced, insufficiently independent oversight bodies.

In several countries the gap widened into outright rollback, with transparency institutions weakened or dismantled and access laws narrowed. Through both the progress and the retreat, civil society has been the right's most active user and its most determined defender - turning information into accountability, and resisting attempts to hollow the right out.

This is the context for the next phase of the IRM. Strengthening follow-up on recommendations under Articles 10 and 13 - with particular attention to proactive publication and accessible, available public data - is what would turn years of legal progress into practical gains, ensuring that access to information is not merely a formal legal entitlement, but an effective tool for preventing and detecting corruption and enabling public participation in governance.

Access to information has become a legally established part of the governance landscape across much of Asia-Pacific, with the majority of countries having adopted Access to Information (ATI) legislation or regulations. Yet the mere existence of a legal framework does not necessarily mean comprehensive coverage. The Centre for Law and Democracy’s Right to Information Rating reflects this uneven picture, with Asia-Pacific countries represented among both the strongest and weakest legal frameworks globally. Several countries, on the other hand, continue to have pending legislative efforts, while others, including North Korea and Myanmar, have seen little or no meaningful progress towards advancing freedom of expression or establishing such frameworks.

Where legislation or regulation exists, implementation of such frameworks and providing meaningful access to information remains a major concern for civil society in the region. Limited or no access to information was identified as a key challenge by the Coalition’s community. According to the latest UNODC assessment of UNCAC implementation, 32 of the 36 Asia-Pacific States Parties with completed reviews received a total of 59 recommendations concerning Article 10 of the UNCAC on public reporting. This represents 89 percent of reviewed States and the second highest number of recommendations among the regional groups, highlighting the continuing need to translate legislative commitments into effective practice.

Legislative momentum for ATI frameworks is growing in the region, but the quality of reform remains decisive. In 2026, several countries with long-pending ATI initiatives made progress, offering cautious optimism after years of advocacy. In the Philippines, the struggle for a comprehensive Freedom of Information law has spanned more than three decades. The House of Representatives’ approval of the Right to Information Bill on third and final reading on 2 June 2026 marked an important milestone, although the legislative process remains incomplete. Civil society organizations have continued to advocate for a framework that extends across all branches and levels of government, establishes independent oversight, provides effective appeals and ensures access to information relevant to public accountability, including asset declarations. While the Bill represents a significant step beyond the existing Executive Order on freedom of information, expert assessments have identified opportunities to strengthen the appeals process, exceptions and refusals, and sanctions and protections, among other provisions. The central concern is not simply whether a law will be adopted, but whether the final text will be sufficiently comprehensive to guarantee the right in practice.

Malaysia illustrates the risks of reform that preserves secrecy rather than overcoming it. The tabling of the federal Freedom of Information Bill in July 2026 was a significant development in a country where civil society has long advocated for stronger transparency guarantees. However, the draft has generated serious concerns regarding its compatibility with international standards and its relationship with existing secrecy laws. Expert assessment has awarded the Bill only 47 out of 150 points, or 29 percent, placing it 137th among 142 assessed laws. Malaysian civil society organizations have called for substantial amendments, particularly to strengthen the right of access, requesting procedures, exceptions and safeguards. The experience underscores a broader regional challenge: ATI laws must be designed so that disclosure becomes the norm, rather than creating a parallel framework that remains subordinate to broad secrecy provisions.

In Papua New Guinea, however, civil society engagement is helping to move a long-standing commitment towards implementation. In 2026, civil society organizations such as Transparency International PNG were involved in the validation of the draft National Right to Information Policy. Civil society continues to advocate for comprehensive legislation, an independent information commission and accessible procedures. Together, the experiences of the Philippines, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea demonstrate both the importance of sustained civil society advocacy and the need to ensure that legislative momentum results in strong, enforceable and inclusive frameworks.

The next frontier is making information genuinely accessible and useful for accountability. While legislative developments receive considerable attention, regional discussion must increasingly move towards proactive disclosure and the practical use of information in preventing and detecting corruption. However, in reality, citizens continue to face barriers arising from broad exemptions, administrative delays, high costs, weak appeals mechanisms and limited access to information on procurement, public contracts, beneficial ownership and asset declarations. At the same time, evidence continues to emerge of citizens across Asia-Pacific using ATI to hold public authorities accountable.

To this end, the next phase of the UNCAC Implementation Review Mechanism should also strengthen follow-up on recommendations under Article 10 and 13, with particular attention to proactive publication and accessible and available public data. These measures are essential to ensuring that access to information is not merely a formal legal entitlement, but an effective tool for preventing and detecting corruption and enabling public participation in governance.

By September 2026, every country in Europe had adopted legislation guaranteeing public access to information (ATI). Austria's Freedom of Information Act, passed in 2024, closed the region's last legislative gap. Over the past year, the Council of Europe's Tromsø Convention - the first binding international instrument recognizing a general right of access to official documents - continued to grow, reaching 17 States Parties as North Macedonia's and Latvia's ratifications took effect in 2025. At the EU level, 2025 brought a wave of institutional measures: among others, the European Media Freedom Act became fully applicable, aiming at protecting editorial independence, banning the use of spyware against journalists, and requiring transparency of media ownership. In November 2025, the European Commission and the EU's High Representative jointly presented the European Democracy Shield, including a focus on safeguarding the integrity of the information space. It was paired with the first EU Strategy for Civil Society and the commitment to strengthen engagement with civil society as a partner in governance, protect civil society organizations and support them with sustainable funding. Governments and civil society have also begun coordinating more systematically on proactive disclosure: the Open Government Partnership launched at its IX Summit in October 2025 a Proactive Disclosure Coalition, led by the Netherlands and supporting OECD’s development of shared international standards for publishing government-held information proactively.

Yet legal advances and initiatives have not resolved the region's practical shortfalls in ATI. The latest UNODC assessment of UNCAC implementation found that 68% of Eastern European and 55% of Western European and other states have received recommendations on public reporting (article 10), and 75% and 38%, respectively, on the participation of society in anti-corruption efforts (article 13). Some of the country case studies from the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) illustrate this pattern: in Hungary, ATI remained heavily restricted through legal and political pressure under the previous government’s effort to constrain independent media and civil society, though the electoral results of April 2026 and the formation of a new government have opened a window for reform; in Malta, a weak access to information law combined with lengthy judicial proceedings continues to obstruct access; in Ukraine, the persisting war conditions significantly constrain ATI.

Civil society across Europe continues to demonstrate ATI's practical value as an accountability tool, while fighting the - at times - widening gap between political commitment and protection on the ground. For instance, Germany's FragDenStaat is a platform that has helped more than 130,000 people file over 250,000 information requests and organized campaigns such as the “government in coalition tracker” to follow live which projects were implemented and which ones were left unfinished. At the same time, Transparency International Germany and other civil society partners are contesting the government’s plans, announced in mid-2026, to weaken the ATI law by requiring proof of a "legitimate interest" when submitting an information request, excluding legal entities, significantly increasing fees to access information, and creating new sectoral exemptions.

This dual role as user and defender of the right to information reflects what civil society organizations across the region, including those specialized in fighting corruption, continue to flag as priorities: stronger enforcement of disclosure decisions, protection from the legal and financial retaliation, and effective implementation of protective measures such as the EU's Anti-SLAPP Directive, whose transposition deadline in May 2026 was missed by nearly every member state.

The developments through 2025-2026 show a region with near-universal legal coverage and a fast-evolving institutional framework, but where translating that architecture into everyday practice, and defending it against legislative rollbacks, remains the unfinished task ahead.

Latin America has long recognized the right to information, with 26 countries in the region having right-to-information laws in place, with Cuba’s law entering into force in 2026. The six States without such a law are all Small Island Developing States - Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Saint Lucia, and Suriname.

Yet legal leadership has not translated into strong practical performance. A September 2025 global "stress test" of ATI laws by the Centre for Law and Democracy, based on real information requests submitted, found that Latin America and the Caribbean actually performs below the global average: 40% of requests in the region went unanswered, versus a 38% global average, and response times reached 39 days against a 22-day global average. The past year has even brought institutional rollback in two of the region's largest democracies - Mexico and Argentina.

In Mexico, which occupied second place in the Global Right to Information Index, a constitutional reform eliminating the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Data Protection (INAI) came into effect in December 2024. According to ARTICLE 19, Mexico has experienced a profound setback and shifted toward an information management model that prioritizes the interests of the federal administration and obligated entities over those of the public seeking information. The General Law on Transparency was reformed in 2025, lowering the standard of protection for ATI by weakening principles such as maximum disclosure, proactive transparency, accountability, and effective access to justice. A new body was created within the Executive Branch, “Transparency for the People”, responsible for deciding appeals. While the President adopted a decree in August 2026 to strengthen public disclosure of information, an analysis by civil society organization Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad found incomplete appointment of oversight authorities, the absence of measures to bring the right closer to the public, and the apparent decline in both information requests and appeals, all pointing to a system that has yet to establish its basic foundations.

In Argentina, a 2024 decree narrowing the scope of the public information law was condemned by Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia and over 70 civil society groups for introducing “bad faith” and “abuse of rights” as grounds for sanctioning information requesters, including the possibility of withholding information whenever disclosure could directly or indirectly cause harm, even though this is not an exception established by law, and creating a new category of “data of a private nature”, excluded from the transparency regime established by law.

In El Salvador, despite the country's ATI law still being well considered in the region and ranking among the world's strongest on paper, Acción Ciudadana’s latest monitoring of the Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP) found that, in 2025, the Institute upheld citizens’ right to information in only 3 of 51 decisions, and blocked access to information in 94% of the cases. Additionally, investigative journalists and civil society organizations report a growing deterioration in access to information and press freedom.

Despite obstacles to access information, journalists and independent organizations are carrying out projects using open data and network analysis, such as the project “Fantasmas del Erario”, an investigation by Quinto Elemento Lab that tracked thousands of public contracts awarded by the Mexican government to shell companies.

Overall, Latin America and the Caribbean is a region with a strong normative legacy, but one where implementation continues to lag and where sustaining practical access to information increasingly depends on the persistence of journalists and civil society, rather than on weakened oversight bodies.

There have been developments in the recognition of the right of Access to Information (ATI) as an important element in the realization of accountable, transparent and participatory governance across Sub-Saharan Africa. This is evident with regional advances in ATI legislation at the national level. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) noted in 2025 that since the adoption of the African Model Law on Access to Information in 2013, twenty-nine African States had adopted access to information laws - plus Senegal in August 2025, - bringing the total to thirty. In several countries, the right to information is constitutionally protected, providing an additional legal foundation for public oversight. Civil society organizations (CSOs), journalists and communities have increasingly used ATI to scrutinize public expenditure, procurement, infrastructure projects and service delivery, while regional initiatives have sought to strengthen the existing framework. In July 2025, the ACHPR adopted Resolution ACHPR/Res.639 (LXXXIV) 2025 initiating a one-year review and update to the 2013 African Model Law on Access to Information in cognizance to digital information developments.

The existence of an ATI law does not necessarily translate into a functioning right to information. This implementation gap is also reflected in findings of the UNODC assessment of the second cycle of the UNCAC Implementation. The findings indicate that of the 26 African States whose reviews had been completed, 24 received recommendations on the implementation of Article 10 of the UNCAC on public reporting totaling to 49 recommendations. This means that 92% of the African States reviewed received at least one recommendation under Article 10. For Article 13 on the participation of society, 18 of the 26 African States reviewed received a total of 33 recommendations, representing 69% of reviewed African States.

African Freedom of Expression Exchange (AFEX)’s 2025 comparative assessment of Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, The Gambia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe found variations in the implementation of national ATI frameworks. Across the region, delayed responses, weak institutional compliance, inadequate records management, limited proactive disclosure, insufficient public awareness and difficulties accessing information through digital channels continue to restrict the practice of ATI. The continued operation of older secrecy and national security laws alongside newer ATI legislation also undermines the presumption of openness while weak, under-resourced, and insufficient independent oversight and appeal mechanisms may sometimes leave individuals without remedies when information is withheld.

Access to information depends not only on whether a public institution releases information but also on whether citizens, journalists and CSOs can safely access, communicate and disseminate it. Access Now recorded 21 internet shutdowns across 15 African countries in 2024, followed by 30 shutdowns across 15 African countries in 2025, affecting countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. Such restrictions have direct implications for access to information and civic participation. Restrictive cybercrime and data protection laws can also create additional risks where they are applied in ways that limit freedom of expression and create new grounds for withholding information in the public interest.

Sub-Saharan Africa has made considerable advances on ATI but the benefits of this progress are not being fully realized. However, efforts should now be directed towards effective implementation and enforcement focusing on independent and adequately resourced oversight mechanisms, enforceable disclosure obligations, accessible appeals mechanisms, proactive and digital publication public interest information and meaningful protection for journalists, whistleblowers and civil society organizations.

The main challenge regarding access to information (ATI) in the South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region continues to lie in implementation. Legal coverage is extensive: Jordan was among the first countries in the region to adopt ATI legislation, already in 2007, followed by Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, Sudan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with the last of these countries passing laws in 2021-22. Some further legislative movement continued over the past year: Iraq's long-pending Right to Access Information law advanced through further parliamentary readings and intensified civil society advocacy through 2024-2025, though it had still not entered into force as of September 2026. Yet, public access to information is restricted by, on one hand, shortcomings in the laws undermining their effectiveness, and on the other hand, weak enforcement.

Three recurring obstacles explain this implementation gap. The first is administrative: in many countries, information coordinators required under ATI laws have not been appointed, records remain undigitized, and public-sector staff have not been properly trained to process requests. This is for instance the case in Lebanon. The first annual implementation report of the ATI law, published in April 2025, found that more than half of target administrations at national level, and 75% at the local level, had not appointed an “Information Officer”.

The second obstacle is cultural and legal: broad statutory exceptions combined with a persistent culture of confidentiality within public administrations, leaving many officials reluctant to release information for fear of being held accountable later for disclosing material that might retrospectively be deemed sensitive. In Lebanon, close to 40% of institutions do not publish any information proactively and limited access to information in practice directly undermines civil society participation and media oversight. Kuwait's ATI law remains hampered by an unclear requirement of a "legitimate interest" to access information, and Yemen's law is not implemented due to ongoing instability. In Jordan, the development of three protocols has helped clarify which categories of information should be disclosed and which may legitimately fall within national security exceptions, providing greater legal certainty for public officials.

A further challenge is the limited independence of oversight bodies, which frequently lack dedicated budgets, sufficient resources, and the institutional autonomy needed to effectively oversee implementation of ATI laws. A sharp setback came in Tunisia, where the government dissolved the National Authority for Access to Information (INAI) in August 2025, eliminating an independent body established in 2016 to ensure citizens and journalists could access official information. On the contrary, in 2024, Jordan expanded the membership of its Information Council to include civil society representatives. This is a positive step, as civil society across the region continues to drive both use and defense of the right to information. Transparency International's local chapter in Lebanon, together with LCPS, tracked compliance of Lebanese ministries on ATI and recently published a parallel report on UNCAC implementation, which also offers recommendations to strengthen access to information for anti-corruption efforts. Similarly, in its UNCAC implementation parallel report, Investigator Organization for the Rule of Law (IOL) from Iraq highlighted the many instances of journalists and people who point to corruption or dissent against the government being arbitrarily arrested in Iraq.

The developments on ATI over the past year portray a region with more legal coverage, but still weak practical access to information.