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This is being sent to several lists - apologies for cross postings. PRESS RELEASE Kiswahili Edition of the Proceedings of Information for Accountability Workshop, Tanzania Are Now Available The proceedings of the world’s first Information for Accountability Workshop are now available in Kiswahili. They may be downloaded from http://www.irmt.org/index2.html The workshop was held at the British Council auditorium in Dar-es-Salaam on 27-28 March 2000. It was sponsored by the World Bank Danish Trust Fund on Governance and the British Council. Gaining access to government information can be a major challenge in Tanzania and elsewhere throughout the world. Transparency International (Tanzania) and the International Records Management Trust, Rights and Records Institute held a two-day workshop in Dar-es-Salaam in March 2000. The workshop participants discussed the issue of improving citizens’ access to information held by public bodies. They included members of parliament, senior civil servants, and representatives of the legal profession, the media, academia and public interest groups. The workshop’s goal was to encourage the formation of an informed civil society. Once equipped with information, individual citizens and their representatives can assert their civil rights, hold governments accountable, and help to detect and deter corruption and fraud. Key issues and obstacles to accessing government information were highlighted by workshop participants and a number of recommendations were made. The focus was on developing a practical action programme to meet both short-term and longer-term objectives. The District Based Support for Primary Education programme provided a real case study for the workshop. In addition, actions with a wider goal of improving access to information across government were also discussed. The English-language edition of the Proceedings of the first Information for Accountability Workshop are available on the IRMT website at http://www.irmt.org/resources/tanpro.pdf