Strategy

Access Info runs  projects which are in line with its mission and according to a strategy which is periodically revised and approved by the Executive Board and International Advisory Board.

Access Info Europe Strategy (updated October 2009)

In the strategy document, Access Info sets out the rationale for its existence and activities. Based on research carried out across Europe in recent years, Access Info has identified a series of problems related to the right of access to information, namely:

• • Huge variations in the same right of access to information in law and practice around Europe;
  • Lack of awareness among European CSOs and citizens of the relevance and usefulness of the right of access to information to defend human rights and, for those who do try to exercise the right, difficulties in obtaining information;
  • Much information is still outside the reach of access to information laws because of lack of agreement on standards for the scope of the right and because of governments’ unwillingness or failure to publish information proactively.

Our work is structured in three strategic lines designed to address the these problems:

• Advancing the Right to Know: promoting access to information in law and practice across Europe;
• Using the Right to Know: helping NGOs, journalists, and citizens to get information;
• Thinking Info! standard-setting and policy discussions on the right to information.

These strategic lines result in three activity areas conceived from the perspective of Access Info’s internal strategy but also to make sense when communicating our work to external actors. This logic is also used in the structure of this website in the hope that people approaching Access Info with little prior knowledge of our work should be able rapidly and easily to identify what we do, how we are doing it, and to find relevant information.