Background

Access to Information has been recognized as a key development strategy with its potential to empower citizens in relation to the state, and make administration more transparent, accountable and participatory. It holds the key to citizens’ awareness of and ability to access their rights and equip them to participate meaningfully in the development process. This has been an important component of UNDP’s global initiative under democratic governance for realizing the Millennium Development Goals.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Government of India in partnership with UNDP, India launched a Project titled ‘Capacity Building for Access to Information to facilitate effective operationalisation of the RTI Act initially in 12 states in the country. This intervention has been further expanded to cover nearly all the states in India including Meghalaya. The project aims at increasing the awareness and enhancing the capacities of Government officials as information providers, and citizens as information seekers and a range of actors namely NGOs, Civil Society and the Media to facilitate the sharing of information; and to strengthen and institutionalize government-citizen interface and to facilitate research, documentation, communication and networking.