Category: Paper Chase

It’s here, it’s now: #IJAsia14,marketplace for muckraking

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By: DAVID E. KAPLAN, Global Investigative Journalism Network*

FIRST, the big news: In just over two weeks we’ll convene Uncovering Asia, the region’s first investigative journalism conference. Excitement is building, and we’ve got an extraordinary array of the best journalists from Japan to Pakistan coming our way – heading to Manila for a World’s Fair of muckraking from Nov. 22-24.

GIJN has teamed up with two great partners to help give Asian investigative journalism a boost: the Asian Media Programme of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, the German foundation; and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. We’ll have journalists from 25 countries talking about setting up networks, collaborating on stories, and sharing tips and data.

Why Asia? Why Now?

So why are we heading to Asia? That’s easy. It’s where most of humanity lives, and the demand for quality investigative reporting is enormous. More than 4.3 billion people call Asia home – that’s 60% of the global population. It has the world’s second and third largest economies, and its share of global GDP is expected to double. But the region is also among the weakest links in an emerging global community of investigative journalists.

Asia is home to 4.3 billion people, 60% of humanity.

GIJN is a network of networks. We have more than 100 member organizations from nearly 50 countries, and many of them have their own memberships across nations and regions. Over the past 20 years these groups – which today form the backbone of global investigative journalism – have spread to every continent. In North America we have Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Investigative News Network, and dozens of other nonprofits. In Europe we have Journalismfund.eu, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Scoop, and also many more independent groups. In Africa there’s the Forum for African Investigative Reporters and, more recently, the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting. In the Middle East and North Africa there’s Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism. In Latin America we have the annual COLPIN conferences, growing networks like Connectas, and strong national associations like Brazil’s Abraji.

And in Asia? Not so much. No investigative networks. No annual conferences. No fund for investigative journalism. Of GIJN’s 107 members, only 5 are in Asia. All that needs to change.

Well, here’s the good news – it is in fact changing, and quickly. Our colleagues around the region tell us that Uncovering Asia is the right event at the right time. Fueled by the same forces that have made investigative reporting a force to be reckoned with elsewhere – globalization, computing power, mobile phones, and determined journalists — there are signs from Seoul to Islamabad that a new era of muckraking is at hand.

Sure, we’ve got huge challenges. Criminal libel laws are still on the books in many countries. China and Vietnam are among the world’s leading jailers of journalists. Traditional media are driven toward poorly reported scandals and sensation, not careful watchdog reporting. Journalists lack training and resources for in-depth reporting. Owners are too often in cahoots with the very people the media should be investigating. And it’s bloody dangerous out there. Too many of our colleagues from the Philippines to Pakistan have lost their lives simply for reporting the truth.

But history is on our side. A global marketplace means countries need to open up in order to compete. Smart leaders know that if they really want to fight corruption and promote public accountability, they need an investigative news media. Meanwhile, the Internet is bringing tools and techniques to our colleagues everywhere, and connecting journalists in unprecedented ways. Secrets are much harder to keep, while public records are more accessible than ever.

Asian investigative journalism nonprofits: A growth industry?

Major media plays a critical role in spreading investigative journalism around the world. But it is the nonprofits that have served as training centers, incubators, and models of excellence in the rapid growth of muckraking. And for years there was only one IJ nonprofit in Asia – the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, founded in 1989.

This is another reason we are heading to Manila – to mark and celebrate PCIJ’s 25 extraordinary years. In that quarter century, the Philippine Center has published more than 1,000 investigative reports, produced scores of documentaries, and launched some two dozen books. Its staff have run more than 120 seminars for journalists across Asia, and won 150 awards for their dogged work. PCIJ’s investigation in 2000 of then-President Joseph Estrada, which led to his impeachment, is taught in journalism schools as a case study in modern muckraking. Equally impressive, the PCIJ staff showed that an independent nonprofit could not only survive but thrive in a developing country, and its work over the years has served as a model for scores of nonprofit journalism centers around the world. That is worth heralding.

PCIJ helped inspire the Nepal Centre for Investigative Journalism, launched in 1996, which has been rejuvenated and is back doing first-rate work. And now look what has followed:

A Promising Start

These nonprofits and networks are, of course, in addition to the extraordinary work being done by mainstream media, both local and international. To name but a few: the New York Times work on the corrupt wealth of China’s leadership; Reuters’ projects on mistreatment of Myanmar’s Rohingya minority, and its Connected China data project; the Japanese media’s digging into the Fukushima nuclear disaster; the gutsy reporting by Chinese journalists from Caixin, Southern Weekend, and CCTV, among others; and a growing force of world-class reporters across South Asia, who refuse to accept government press releases and corporate payoffs as real journalism. And don’t forget the Philippine Daily Inquirer‘s exposés of pork barrel politics, determined digging by Indonesia’s Tempo magazine and Taiwan’s CommonWealth, and watchdog reporting by Malaysia’s Malaysiakini and Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post – these are but a few of the noteworthy efforts in recent years.

Journalism professors are playing a critical role, as well, training a new generation of journalists in how to dig, analyze data, and find documents. We’ve had tremendous response from top “J schools” in the region to Uncovering Asia. Among the schools which will be represented at the conference: the Ateneo de Manila University’s Asian Center for Journalism (Philippines), Asian College of Journalism (India), Chung-Ang University’s School of Journalism & Mass Communication (Korea), Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (U.S.), Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre (Hong Kong), and Waseda University’s Journalism School (Japan).

So, come join us in Manila if you can, and hear first-hand the reporters involved in charting the future of in-depth journalism. We’ll have more than 30 sessions ranging from tracking assets and dirty money to the latest data tools and how to set up your own investigative team. If you can’t join us, you can follow it all on Twitter at #IJAsia14. And don’t’ worry if you miss much. This isn’t the end of something big – it’s the beginning.

*Story originally titled “Why Asia? Why now?”

It’s here, it’s now: #IJAsia14,marketplace for muckraking

mcmangahas Leave a comment

By: DAVID E. KAPLAN, Global Investigative Journalism Network*

FIRST, the big news: In just over two weeks we’ll convene Uncovering Asia, the region’s first investigative journalism conference. Excitement is building, and we’ve got an extraordinary array of the best journalists from Japan to Pakistan coming our way – heading to Manila for a World’s Fair of muckraking from Nov. 22-24.

GIJN has teamed up with two great partners to help give Asian investigative journalism a boost: the Asian Media Programme of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, the German foundation; and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. We’ll have journalists from 25 countries talking about setting up networks, collaborating on stories, and sharing tips and data.

Why Asia? Why Now?

So why are we heading to Asia? That’s easy. It’s where most of humanity lives, and the demand for quality investigative reporting is enormous. More than 4.3 billion people call Asia home – that’s 60% of the global population. It has the world’s second and third largest economies, and its share of global GDP is expected to double. But the region is also among the weakest links in an emerging global community of investigative journalists.

Asia is home to 4.3 billion people, 60% of humanity.

GIJN is a network of networks. We have more than 100 member organizations from nearly 50 countries, and many of them have their own memberships across nations and regions. Over the past 20 years these groups – which today form the backbone of global investigative journalism – have spread to every continent. In North America we have Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Investigative News Network, and dozens of other nonprofits. In Europe we have Journalismfund.eu, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Scoop, and also many more independent groups. In Africa there’s the Forum for African Investigative Reporters and, more recently, the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting. In the Middle East and North Africa there’s Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism. In Latin America we have the annual COLPIN conferences, growing networks like Connectas, and strong national associations like Brazil’s Abraji.

And in Asia? Not so much. No investigative networks. No annual conferences. No fund for investigative journalism. Of GIJN’s 107 members, only 5 are in Asia. All that needs to change.

Well, here’s the good news – it is in fact changing, and quickly. Our colleagues around the region tell us that Uncovering Asia is the right event at the right time. Fueled by the same forces that have made investigative reporting a force to be reckoned with elsewhere – globalization, computing power, mobile phones, and determined journalists — there are signs from Seoul to Islamabad that a new era of muckraking is at hand.

Sure, we’ve got huge challenges. Criminal libel laws are still on the books in many countries. China and Vietnam are among the world’s leading jailers of journalists. Traditional media are driven toward poorly reported scandals and sensation, not careful watchdog reporting. Journalists lack training and resources for in-depth reporting. Owners are too often in cahoots with the very people the media should be investigating. And it’s bloody dangerous out there. Too many of our colleagues from the Philippines to Pakistan have lost their lives simply for reporting the truth.

But history is on our side. A global marketplace means countries need to open up in order to compete. Smart leaders know that if they really want to fight corruption and promote public accountability, they need an investigative news media. Meanwhile, the Internet is bringing tools and techniques to our colleagues everywhere, and connecting journalists in unprecedented ways. Secrets are much harder to keep, while public records are more accessible than ever.

Asian investigative journalism nonprofits: A growth industry?

Major media plays a critical role in spreading investigative journalism around the world. But it is the nonprofits that have served as training centers, incubators, and models of excellence in the rapid growth of muckraking. And for years there was only one IJ nonprofit in Asia – the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, founded in 1989.

This is another reason we are heading to Manila – to mark and celebrate PCIJ’s 25 extraordinary years. In that quarter century, the Philippine Center has published more than 1,000 investigative reports, produced scores of documentaries, and launched some two dozen books. Its staff have run more than 120 seminars for journalists across Asia, and won 150 awards for their dogged work. PCIJ’s investigation in 2000 of then-President Joseph Estrada, which led to his impeachment, is taught in journalism schools as a case study in modern muckraking. Equally impressive, the PCIJ staff showed that an independent nonprofit could not only survive but thrive in a developing country, and its work over the years has served as a model for scores of nonprofit journalism centers around the world. That is worth heralding.

PCIJ helped inspire the Nepal Centre for Investigative Journalism, launched in 1996, which has been rejuvenated and is back doing first-rate work. And now look what has followed:

A Promising Start

These nonprofits and networks are, of course, in addition to the extraordinary work being done by mainstream media, both local and international. To name but a few: the New York Times work on the corrupt wealth of China’s leadership; Reuters’ projects on mistreatment of Myanmar’s Rohingya minority, and its Connected China data project; the Japanese media’s digging into the Fukushima nuclear disaster; the gutsy reporting by Chinese journalists from Caixin, Southern Weekend, and CCTV, among others; and a growing force of world-class reporters across South Asia, who refuse to accept government press releases and corporate payoffs as real journalism. And don’t forget the Philippine Daily Inquirer‘s exposés of pork barrel politics, determined digging by Indonesia’s Tempo magazine and Taiwan’s CommonWealth, and watchdog reporting by Malaysia’s Malaysiakini and Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post – these are but a few of the noteworthy efforts in recent years.

Journalism professors are playing a critical role, as well, training a new generation of journalists in how to dig, analyze data, and find documents. We’ve had tremendous response from top “J schools” in the region to Uncovering Asia. Among the schools which will be represented at the conference: the Ateneo de Manila University’s Asian Center for Journalism (Philippines), Asian College of Journalism (India), Chung-Ang University’s School of Journalism & Mass Communication (Korea), Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (U.S.), Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre (Hong Kong), and Waseda University’s Journalism School (Japan).

So, come join us in Manila if you can, and hear first-hand the reporters involved in charting the future of in-depth journalism. We’ll have more than 30 sessions ranging from tracking assets and dirty money to the latest data tools and how to set up your own investigative team. If you can’t join us, you can follow it all on Twitter at #IJAsia14. And don’t’ worry if you miss much. This isn’t the end of something big – it’s the beginning.

*Story originally titled “Why Asia? Why now?”

Killed, tortured, jailed, missing: Impunity most foul, most cruel

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KILLED execution-style. Blown up by a bomb. Tortured. Held incommunicado for 13 years. Disappeared.

And all that for chasing stories of crime, corruption, and conflict. Or for sketching cartoons.

They are all journalists. Their tragic stories now constitute the 10 “emblematic cases of impunity” that Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres or RSF) has chosen to highlight as part of its #FightImpunity campaign for the first International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.

The aim, RSF said, is “to involve the general public and step up pressure on governments to bring those responsible for these crimes to justice.”

According to RSF, around 800 journalists have been killed in connection with their work in the past decade.

The deadliest year was 2012, with 88 journalists killed.

The number of killed fell slightly in 2013 but the figures for physical attacks and threats against journalists continued to rise.

At total of 56 journalists have been killed since the start of 2014.

RSF said those responsible were many and varied, and include governments, armed groups and hit-men. It blamed the shortcomings of police and justice systems for the failures to solve these cases or to convict the perpetrators and instigators, it added.

On Dec. 13, 2013, the United Nations General Assembly declared November 2 as International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. The day marks the anniversary of the murder of the two Radio France Internationale journalists, Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon in Kidal, Mali, in 2012.

RSF has chosen 10 cases “to put names and faces to the tragic statistics and to show the scale and different forms that impunity can take.”

But it lamented that, “the resources deployed by authorities to solve these and many other cases have been either non-existent or hopelessly inadequate.”

More than 90 percent of crimes against journalists are never solved and therefore never punished, RSF said.

These 10 impunity cases are presented on a specially created website.

Four of the victims had disappeared: Mexican crime reporter María Esther Aguilar Casimbe, Abidjan-based French journalist Guy-André Kieffer, Iranian newspaper editor Pirouz Davani and Sri Lankan political analyst and cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda.

Some had been murdered: Pakistani reporter Syed Saleem Shahzad, the young Serbian journalist Dada Vujasinovic, the Beirut-based columnist Samir Kassir and the Dagestani journalist Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, who was gunned down in 2013.

One, Dawit Isaak, a journalist with Swedish and Eritrean dual nationality, has been held incommunicado in Eritrean President Issayas Aferworki’s hellish prison camps for the past 13 years.

Another, Bahraini reporter Nazeeha Saeed, had been tortured by police officers for covering pro-democracy demonstrations.

“We must never abandon journalists who are the victims of crimes, not even posthumously,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“The ten impunity cases we are presenting are shocking examples of incompetence or wilful inaction by officials who should be punishing despicable crimes against those who have tried to describe reality as it is,” RSF said.

“Such a level of impunity just encourages those who commit these abuses. International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists is an occasion for paying tribute to the victims, reminding governments of their obligation to protect journalists and combat impunity, and reminding those who target journalists that one day they will be held to account for their actions.”

“Whether killed execution-style, blown-up by a bomb, tortured to death or disappeared, these journalists paid the price for their commitment to freedom of information,” RSF said. T”hey were targeted for investigating corruption or drug trafficking, for criticizing the government or intelligence agencies or for drawing attention to human rights violations.

Yet while some of the cases have become emblematic, “others are less well known.”

To combat impunity, RSF urged the creation of the position of special adviser to the UN secretary-general on the safety of journalists, saying that “creating such a post at the heart of the UN system would enable monitoring and verification of states’ compliance with their obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1738 and the General Assembly resolution of 18 December 2013.”

Adopted 23 December 23, 2006, Resolution 1738 reminds states of their “obligations under international law to end impunity.”

The resolution passed by the UN General Assembly on 18 December 2013 calls on states to conduct “impartial, speedy and effective investigations into all alleged violence against journalists (…) to bring the perpetrators of such crimes to justice and ensure that victims have access to appropriate remedies.”

A resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Council on September 10 called in similar terms for an end to impunity. “A proper international monitoring and verification mechanism is needed so that all these resolutions can be implemented,” RSF said.

RWB also called for an amendment to Article 8 of the International Criminal Court’s statute “so that deliberate attacks on journalists, media workers and associated personnel are defined as war crimes.”

As a member of the French coalition of the ICC, RSF said it is urging states to pass legislation allowing them, under the principle of universal jurisdiction, to prosecute those in their territory who committed grave crimes in another country.

The European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have ruled that respect for freedom of information not only requires states to abstain from arbitrarily interfering in the use of the right to information but also requires them to protect journalists and prosecute those who target them, it added.

RSF exhorted governments to “implement these provisions by conducting immediate, effective and independent investigations into attacks against journalists and prosecuting those responsible.”

“The authorities that conduct these investigations must be able to resist any political, diplomatic or technical pressure or obstacles they may encounter.” it said. “In some ongoing cases, RWB has seen how the threat of ending a judicial investigation represents a victory for impunity.”

SALN salsa in the high court

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By Charmaine P. Lirio

TO SHARE or not to share — that’s a question that arguably shouldn’t even come up whenever the Supreme Court is asked for the Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) of its members and the rest of the judiciary.

Recently, however, the Supreme Court rejected even the request of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares for copies of the SALN of members of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and Court of Tax Appeals. According to the Court, Henares’s request lacked reasonable and sufficient basis — which probably had the country’s top tax official practising some more at the shooting range.

And yet Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, in her most recent meeting with the press, said that in her opinion members of the judiciary are already “very transparent” when it comes to their wealth. She also said that a review of the guidelines on accessing the SALNs of members of the judiciary would require more time.

“It was in 2012 that we decided with full compliance of the SALN law,” Sereno said at the press conference in late August. “Now, you are going to ask us to push further.”

“Give it a little rest,” she said. “It’s only been two years.”

SALNs, of course, are important source documents for tracking the wealth of public officials and for checking for potential and actual conflicts of interests that may affect the performance of their duties. But for the last two decades or so, getting SALNs from members of the judiciary has been far from easy. That includes the last two years since Sereno became Chief Justice.

To be sure, the Supreme Court, in its 2012 resolution containing guidelines on requesting copies of SALNs from the judiciary, said that “custodians of public documents must not concern themselves with the motives, reasons and objects of the persons seeking access to the records. The moral or material injury which their misuse might inflict on others is the requestor’s responsibility and lookout.”

Despite such pronouncements, though, the Court requires a statement of specific purpose and interest to be served for SALN requests. If the requestor cites public interest or public concern, a further justification should be indicated. If it is for an individual, the interest must “go beyond pure or mere curiosity.” If it includes a request for SALN for previous years, a separate explanation is also needed.

That”s not the end of it. The Clerk of Court will then assess the request to see if it is covered by the limitation and prohibitions of the law and the Supreme Court’s guidelines before referring it to the Court En Banc for “final determination.”

In addition, a request for copies of SALN of the judiciary calls for the accomplishment of a request form, which must be notarized. For members of the media, the submission of proof of media affiliation and a certification that the organization is a legitimate media entity are also needed.

The Supreme Court invokes privacy, safety, and the maintenance of the independence of the justices by protecting them against intimidation as reasons for its numerous requirements for SALN requests. At the press conference, Chief Justice Sereno said that the Court was not acting outside of its bounds when it set the guidelines.

In its 2012 resolution, the Court had also mentioned the restrictions under the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of Republic Act 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees. Under Rule IV of the law’s IRR, requests for information may be denied when disclosure would put an individual in imminent danger, might compromise rulings or decisions, or interfere with adjudication and enforcement proceedings.

The law itself includes provisions for the availability of SALNs at reasonable hours and reasonable costs, as well as a prohibition against using these for purposes contrary to moral or public policy or for commercial purposes other than communication media.

Prior to the resolution, the courts referred to a 1989 guideline when receiving SALN requests. The old rule was stricter and leaned more toward denial of access. This facilitated a practice of secrecy that had developed during the ’90s under then Chief Justice Andres B. Narvasa. At the time, reports of alleged bribery and corruption swirled around the high tribunal, damaging its reputation and even causing the early retirement of its chief justice in 1998.

The policy of non-disclosure was adopted by succeeding justices. In fact, the Court has been rejecting SALN requests from PCIJ since 2006.

The situation changed somewhat in 2012, when the tribunal was compelled to act on the numerous requests before them, triggered in part by the proceedings against then Chief Justice Renato Corona, who was impeached because of inaccurate entries in his SALN.

To Sereno, the SALN guidelines circa 2012 are “a major improvement over the former regime that had prohibited the disclosure of the SALN except for very, very limited reasons.”

Perhaps others can tell the difference. As for PCIJ, there are only more forms to fill, requirements to accomplish, purposes and interests to explain, and offices to go through in the hope that its request for the justices’ SALNs won’t face the same fate as that of the BIR.

Track budget documents real-time

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IT IS A BUDGET decked with pork before and huge lump-sum or special purpose funds to this day. Many citizens are wont to believe that the budget is a document that hides more than it reveals.

Yet still, in terms of the simple availability of budget documents to the public – and not accountability in how funds are being spent r the integrity of the data enrolled int he documents — the Philippines seems to be doing quite well in a league of 30 mostly poor, developing countries in the world.

It is the only one of the 30 countries that has so far made major budget documents available, or even readily downloadable from the websites of the spending agencies.

On Sept. 12, 2104, the US-based International Budget Partnership (IBP) launched a new tracking tool, the Open Budget Survey Tracker to provide real-time information on the availability to the citizens of eight essential budget documents. By international good practice in budget transparency, these eight must published in a timely manner.

Research teams have been assigned to work with the OBS Tracker in 30 countries. Monitoring work started in November 2013 and will end in June 2015.

The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), the Philippine researcher, has used as reference the budget calendar, which the agencies have adopted mostly by established practice. Thus far, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), and the Commission on Audit (COA) have made the following documents available, covering three fiscal years: 2013, 2014, and 2015:

* 2015 Pre-budget Statement (PBS)
* 2015 Executive Budget Proposal (EBP)
* 2014 Enacted Budget (EB)
* Citizen’s Budget for EB and EBP
* In-Year Reports (Cash Operation, Revenues, Expenditure, and Debt Reports from the BTr and Status of Allotment Releases, Report on Utilization of Cash Allocation, and Disbursement Performance Reports from DBM)
* 2013 Mid-year Review
* 2014 Year-end Report
* 2012 Annual Audit Report

Of the 30 countries covered in the OBS Tracker, 14 are in Africa, 7 in Asia, 6 in Europe, and 3 in South America. In Asia, Philippines performed better than Kyrgyz Republic, Timor Leste, Vietnam, Palestsine, Iraq, and Myanmar, by the standard of making budget documents publicly available on time.

In the other countries, many budget documents were available for internal use only by officials. The citizen’s budget and mid-year review were commonly not produced. The non-disclosure of these documents to the public, according to the IBP, “leaves critical gaps in the public’s ability to understand how public money is being managed and, ultimately, assess how well the government is doing in delivering essential services such as health and education.”

In truth, the OBS Tracker is limited only to providing information on the timeliness of the public release of budget documents. It does not offer an assessment on the quality and comprehensiveness of the information enrolled in the documents. Neither does it capture the availability of data on the spending of lump-sum or special purpose funds that are relevant to current issues such as the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) in the Philippines’s case.

The OBS Tracker, nonetheless, complements the Open Budget Survey (OBS) that the IBP conducts in 100 countries every two years. At best, the OBS Tracker gives monthly updates on the availability of key budget documents. The Open Budget Survey, meanwhile, remains the definitive source for assessment of the broader public budget system within a country.

While less comprehensive than the Open Budget Survey, the timeliness of the OBS Tracker “allows governments to be recognized almost immediately when they take steps to be more transparent and enables stakeholders to track progress, identify gaps, and press for improvements,” the IBP said.

“Covering over 100 countries, the Open Budget Survey is the gold standard for assessing government budget transparency and accountability,” IBP Executive Director Warren Krafchik said in a press statement. “However, the research, analysis, and review for this comprehensive assessment takes two years, which creates significant gaps in monitoring and encouraging government improvements. So, we developed the OBS Tracker to provide certain fundamental budget information on a more frequent basis.”

“The OBS Tracker complements but doesn’t replace the full Open Budget Survey,” Kraftchick said. “It is like a thermometer or blood pressure gauge in that it can indicate the overall health of the system and identify where there might be problems, but it cannot provide a complete diagnosis.”

With help from the OBS Tracker, “governments that are opening their budgets will get the immediate recognition they deserve, and those that limit information, or restrict it further, will not be allowed to escape scrutiny.”

The IBP conducts the OBS every two years to assess governments’ budget transparency through a 100-point scale called the Open Budget Index (OBI). PCIJ has served as the Philippine researcher of the OBS since 2006.

The 30 countries covered by the OBS Tracker were, by and large, “drawn from among the least transparent as measured by the Open Budget Survey, in order to see whether having more up-to-date information will be a useful tool to encourage governments to improve transparency.”

Visitors to the OBS Tracker website will get an updated snapshot of how countries are doing, look at trends for each country over time, and download the actual budget documents that governments are publishing. – Rowena F. Caronan, PCIJ