At a time when debate is raging over the government's proposal to introduce changes in the Right to Information, the legislation has inspired the World Bank to throw itself open to public scrutiny. From July 1, the Washington DC-based bank will provide information about its policies, details of projects and minutes of board meetings.

“At one stroke from July 1, we will come under public scrutiny. It is in India and globally too. We call it Access to Information (AI), which is equivalent to the Right to Information Act (RTI) of India,” Vikram Chand, senior public sector management specialist of the World Bank told Governance Now.

“We are inspired by the Indian RTI Act. The Indian RTI act sets a high bar. We are also trying to match it,” he added.

Chand said the move would spell a paradigm shift in the working of the bank. “We had several disclosure policies in the past starting from 1985. But in the past we had disclosure policies while now we will provide access to information with a few exceptions,” he said.

Chand said a whole lot of information will now be made available free of cost within 20 days. “It will come under public disclosure document. Projects under implementations – issue, design of the project, implementation of the project, appraisal of the project, closing of the project. A lot of information was not disclosed earlier. Now several things will be available,” he said.

The bank's public information centre will implement the project in over 100 countries where the bank functions. Chand said the main aim is to facilitate better monitoring of projects by civil society organizations and the public.

“Anybody and everybody can get information and a dedicated group of people have been tasked to provide the information,” Muhamad Al Arif, a spokesperson of the bank told Governance Now, “There is a limited list of exceptions of what will not be disclosed. After a period of five years, 10 years, some of those will be made available."

Among the exceptions are "the personal e-mails of staff, protecting the debate within the Bank before reaching a conclusion on project, investigations into corruption (till the finishing of investigations) and the internal financials of the bank".

“The bank's correspondence with the government of India will also be confidential,” Arif added. He also said that if there is compelling public interest to release the document, the appeals board will have the final say.

“When you are not getting what you need, then the appeals board comes into play. You always have right to appeal for more. The board consists of three independent members. They would be from outside the bank. They can’t be pressured by the bank as their reputation would be at stake,” said Arif.  

The bank has earmarked $9 million in creating infrastructure to implement the project. As many as 17,000 archival documents would be released by the World Bank sou motu on July 1. The Bank document also says that there will be increased access to the declassified documents.

According to the document, “In 2008-2009, 7,000 documents were released, which will go up to 40,000 by the end of 2010-2011.”

“The main aim of Access to Information is to reach out to people. Civil society groups could play a key interlocutor role in making the information useful and relevant to the people,” said Arif.