Action Plan for Info Access in the Americas Released

From the Carter Center:

Atlanta . . . Participants in a conference on the right of access to information released today their findings and plan of action to advance the right in the Americas.

The Americas Regional Plan of Action provides a blueprint for the regional and international community, states, and non-state actors to establish, develop, and nurture the right of access to information in the Americas and calls on them to commit to the plan in furtherance of our common objective. The regional document serves as an annex to last year's global Atlanta Declaration and Plan of Action.
 
The conference was held April 28-30, 2009, in Lima, Peru, and was organized by The Carter Center in collaboration with the Organization of American States, the Andean Jurists Commission, and the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. More than 115 representatives from government, civil society, media, private sector, regional intergovernmental organizations, international and regional financial institutions, and donors from 18 countries in the region came together to consider the main obstacles and potential solutions to advance the right of access to information in the Americas.   
 
Participants found that the greatest challenges to the right of access to information in the Americas are a lack of implementation and enforcement of legislation, backsliding in the more developed systems, and an absence of widespread use of the existing legislation and mechanisms, and that the diversity of the region necessitates diversity in responses.

Read more on the Carter Center Web site.