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	Governments that are more open and accountable to their citizens have better development outcomes by Harvard, Transparency International, agencies   The Responsive City - Civic Data, by Susan Crawford. (Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard)   Last week, the UN reported that more than half of humanity now lives in cities; by 2050 two-thirds of people will, up from just 30% in 1950.   Given the grave challenges facing the world"s booming urban areas—including global warming, economic dislocation, and crumbling basic infrastructure, among other torments—tomorrow"s mayors will need to take bold steps to ensure their constituents live in dignity and safety.   But public distrust of dysfunctional, faceless government is profound, resources are limited, gaps between groups are widening, and many are unaware of the role of government in their lives—which makes citizens less likely to support major initiatives.   One way to fill the drained reservoir of public trust in municipal government is to make city hall more visibly—and continuously—responsive. Digital technology can help: by using data to optimize the use of limited city resources and communicate clearly (with a friendly voice) across a range of platforms, a city can make life noticeably better for its citizens.   The hard question is whether cities will use data to make genuine citizen and neighborhood engagement—affecting policy decisions and the allocation of resources, and potentially solving some problems altogether—possible. So far, cities in America are being cautious. There is much more that could be done.   A few weekends ago, at a "Civic Academy" put on by the City of Boston"s Department of Information Technology aimed at training neighborhood groups to use social media tools, Mayor Marty Walsh stepped to the microphone in a short-sleeved shirt to provide some energetic cheerleading: "We want to make sure we"re using every channel available" to reach constituents, he said—including every flavor of social platform, from Tumblr to Twitter to Instagram. (This is a link to a list of every social channel maintained by Boston.) What"s great about Boston"s training sessions, taking place in the city"s new District Hall innovation space in South Boston, is that their goal is to help neighborhoods help themselves--not just publicity for city initiatives.   Communicating by way of social media is both easy and helpful. Boston"s tireless tweeting following the Marathon bombing of last year and during the endless snowstorms of this past winter unquestionably made an enormous difference to Bostonians and others anxious for news. Boston is not alone in its creative use of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. New York City has more than 300 social media channels, and the City of Chicago is not far behind. Many cities collect and analyze geolocated public tweets to help them get ahead of urban issues; when people Tweet about train delays or noises, the city can listen.   When it comes to policy decisions, however, digital technology is mostly being used to announce rather than construct. The City of Palo Alto lets anyone access, visualize, and share its budget and financial information by way of its OpenGov Platform. Houston hosts an online Budget Bootcamp that decodes city budget lingo, and many cities ensure that their budget figures are easily available online.   Participatory budgeting, in which citizens have a hand in allocating resources, has both a long history in Brazil and the support of the White House but has been slow to emerge in U.S. cities. In New York City, residents of ten participating city council districts voted earlier this year on how to spend about $14 million of capital funds. Similarly small experiments in Chicago and San Francisco, as well as a recent youth-oriented effort in Boston, have not had a significant effect on policy.   Just as engineers need to build buildings that don"t fall down, we need to construct public institutions that won"t crumble. It is now possible for cities to use screens, data, and handheld devices to help neighborhoods be visible to themselves—what are the issues? where are the resources?—and allow citizens to organize in ways that will provide dignified, useful assistance to one another and, in partnership, to the city as a whole.   All the best-intentioned tweets in the world won"t substitute for finding a way to authentically harness and respond to civic energy. Governments are part of neighborhoods and aren"t moving; getting people used to working together this way is essential.   http://datasmart.ash.harvard.edu/news/article/how-city-halls-can-help-construct-stronger-neighborhoods-517 http://datasmart.ash.harvard.edu/responsivecity http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/   Madrid, 28 September 2014   On the occasion of International Right to Know Day, Helen Darbishire, Executive Director of Access Info Europe, argues that the European Union should be taking a strong lead on transparency standards across the 28 country region of 500 million inhabitants.   With 751 new members of the European Parliament getting settled into their offices in Brussels, and with the new European Commission – the ministers of the Union – about to be appointed, civil society is demanding a strong transparency agenda in which the EU takes the lead and sets standards to be followed by all its 28 Member States.   The latest figures from the AsktheEU.org request platform, which was launched on International Right to Know Day 2011, gives a rate of 58% for full or partial information release (of which 36% is complete information provided). Actual formal refusals across the EU institutions are low at 8% and in data held specifically on the Council of the EU and the Parliament from 2013, only one request to each institution resulted in administrative silence.   These numbers could certainly be improved and doing so should be a priority for the new Commission. Attention should also be paid to the story behind the numbers: many of the documents which are not being released, and in some cases not even being created, are those needed by the European public to follow decision making and to hold the EU institutions to account.   This means that civil society is having to fight to get access to basic decision-making documents. In October 2013 the European Court of Justice granted Access Info Europe access to a document containing the positions of Member States in negotiations over the EU’s transparency rules. It is both remarkable and unacceptable that it took a 5-year legal battle to secure public access to such a document.   A current area of concern is the negotiation with the United States of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which will govern future rules affecting areas such as the quality of food, consumer protection, and chemicals safety. Much information has been exempted from the reach of the EU’s transparency rules on the grounds that it is an international negotiation; the United States for all its history of Freedom of Information does also not seem particularly keen on permitting the European public to be informed about what is, in effect, a future regulatory framework for European laws.   In July 2014, the European Ombudsman opened an investigation into the European Commission and the Council of the EU for lack of transparency around the TTIP talks and even before concluding this called for publication of the negotiating directives and a range of practical measures to enable timely public access to TTIP documents, as well as to details of meetings with stakeholders, which includes the involvement of the business lobby which has been given privileged access to some documents.   One of the most shocking cases in 2014 has been the refusal of the European Commission to reveal details of spending on travel and hospitality by the outgoing commissioners. This is the kind of refusal which fuels suspicion of wrong-doing and abuse in Brussels, even if it is unjustified.   In Access Info Europe’s opinion polling, 86% of the public across six countries wanted to know how the EU is spending the money which comes from their tax contributions, and it’s a legitimate ask. The public knows that such secrecy is unacceptable by 21st Century standards of an open, democratic society.   Interestingly but not surprisingly, the public is also very concerned about the way the financial crisis is being handled, with 84% of the public demanding to know more about how the European Central Bank has taken decisions relating to the crisis, something which it resisted sharing documents on, including for example what it knew about the true state of finances in Greece in the run up to that country’s financial collapse (Greece also being a country which is very weak on transparency).   With Europe facing a crisis of confidence, as underscored by record low turnout in this year"s European elections (42.5%), a lot of work must be done to get closer to the public, and opening up basic decision-making and spending documents is clearly one of them.   Greater openness is not just clever politics, it’s a legal requirement of the EU treaties which require that EU bodies “shall conduct their work as openly as possible” and that “decisions shall be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the citizen.”   Hence, the incoming Parliament and Commission should make transparency a priority of and should put a strong focus on making the existing rules work in practice.   http://www.access-info.org/es/union-europea/614-rtkd-leadership-europe   19 August 2014   Civil society organizations call for healthy debate on the independence and transparency of official scientific policy advice in the EU.   27 organizations have sent a letter to the new head of the EU Commission reiterating a call for healthy debate on how scientific policy advice is structured in the EU.   In particular, the letter asks the new president of the Commission to put an end to the position of Chief Scientific Adviser to the Commission as currently structured. Civil society has serious concerns that the position concentrates too much influence on one person, and that it operates in total secrecy.   The current position holder has stated that her advice should remain "not transparent” and immune from public scrutiny. The position goes against the principle of ensuring that scientific advice upon which policy decisions are based is independent, balanced, and transparent.   "At a time when scientific opinion is central to EU policy making and legislative processes, the idea of a single person secretly advising the Commission on all science related matters, from climate change, to toxic chemicals, GMOs, fracking and fisheries, is not only unscientific, it is also in direct contradiction to the democratic process enshrined by the European Union," says David Azoulay, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).   "It is critical that EU lawmakers have access to the best representation of wide-ranging and transparent scientific advice to carry out their work; asking one single person to secretly determine what science ‘is’ on a subject is a grave mistake.”   http://www.ciel.org/Chem/EC_Science_19Aug2014.html   Good governance: end poverty now. (Transparency International)   The world is to set global priorities that will chart the course on how all countries work to end poverty by 2030. This is no easy task.   It was tried in 2000 when global leaders made eight development promises to be reached by 2015, known as the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With a year left, only four of the MDG targets have been achieved.   Good governance and anti-corruption were not included in the first list. They should be now.   Transparency International research in more than 100 countries shows how bribery and poor governance have undermined achieving the current MDGs.   The level of corruption in any given country has a direct and significant correlation with that country’s development. For example, in countries where more than 60 per cent of people report paying a bribe, almost five times more people live on less than US$1 a day than in countries where less than 30 per cent of the population reports paying bribes.   Governments that are more open and accountable to their citizens have better development outcomes across the board, regardless of whether a country is richer or poorer. Visit the link below for more details. Visit the related web page
	Violation of Children’s Rights Worldwide by Global Network for Rights and Development Norway   Thousands of children in the world face daily violations. Rarely a day goes by without a child being subjected to abuse and violations. What are the forms and motivations for child abuse and how does it manifest?   Violence against a child causes damage, pain and suffering to the child victim. A child’s sanctity can be perpetuated on an equal level by parents, guardians, close family friends, or strangers.   According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) articles (17), (19),(23),(25),(27),(29),(32) and (39)children can face:   Physical abuse: This can manifest itself in severe beatings and may expose a child to fractures and contusions, bruises, wounds, burns; involving them in physical activities and unethical practices.   This can also manifest in depriving the child from physical and psychological necessities such as food, clothing, adequate shelter and the necessary medical care, as well as subjecting the child to rape, torture and self-harm.   Psychological abuse: Includes authoritarianism, intimidation and exaggerated blame. According to CRC articles (13) (14), abuse includes depriving the child of the right to learn and to obtain knowledge. Abuse against children causes many difficulties in the development of the child, including isolation, depression, negatively affected socialization skills.   Recruitment or use of children in armed conflict   Millions of children are victims of conflict, because they are easy targets. Such victims suffer on many levels:   Children are generally vulnerable due to their age, lack of strength and lack of awareness. They are less likely to speak up as they are unlikely to know that physical abuse is wrong.   Malnutrition, diseases, disabilities, lack of shelter and poverty all contribute to the vulnerability of the child. Special measures for the protection of children from such severe and terrible abuse and the exploitation of their rights must be addressed.   Even though the provisions of international humanitarian and human rights laws are in place, including vital structures such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, children''''s rights are clearly still being violated. Child recruitment in conflict still occurs in many parts of the world.   Child labour   According to a 2013 report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) ‘Marking progress against child labour’, the number of child labourers worldwide is estimated to have fallen from around 264 million child labourers in 2000 to around 168 million children, yet this current figure still shockingly accounts for almost 11 per cent of the child population as a whole. More than half of them, around 85 million, are working in hazardous environments, endangering their health and safety or are suffering from slavery and other forms of forced labour; including drug trafficking and prostitution, as well as involvement in armed conflict.   Furthermore, according to the International Labour Organization’s report, in the Middle East and North Africa, there are nearly 9.2 million child workers (8.4 per cent of the global total), suffering from poverty, as well as a poor quality of education.   There are various possible reasons for this child labour phenomenon, which may be attributed to:   Poverty: This is the first factor which explains why child labour occurs in all parts of the world. Children are forced to leave school early and work instead to try to provide for the family.   Absence of schooling: Children do not go to school for different reasons such as:   The inability of the family to bear the costs of study for their child.   For many survival is the ultimate goal, and work is considered more necessary than education.   Therefore, reducing poverty and emphasising the importance of education is vital to reducing child labour.   Denial of education   The importance of education is well recognized internationally. Recent international experiences have shown that education is the first contributing factor to countries that have made great strides in progress. Many children are however still deprived of their right to education.   As a 2013 UNESCO paper indicates, half of the 57 million children worldwide who are not enrolled in school are living in conflict-affected countries. UNESCO expresses the need for the world to take urgent action to bring education to the 28.5 million children worldwide who are being deprived of it in conflict zones.   Deprivation of play   It is commonly accepted that children who are deprived of playful activities are unable to exercise their full right to childhood. As Peter Gray, psychologist and research professor, maintains “Play deprivation is bad for children. Among other things, it promotes anxiety, depression, suicide, narcissism, and loss of creativity”. GNRD believes playing is important in contributing to the development of the child and to support both mental and physical health.   Thus, GNRD has launched the “I Have a Right to Play” project which aims to give “vulnerable children that are living in poor social and economic conditions the authentic opportunity to enjoy their right to play in a safe and adequate environment and encourage them to develop their talents.” GNRD plans to expand this project to all countries that are in need to enforce children’s rights worldwide.   Abuse and its impact on child   There is no doubt that violations have very negative effects on the child and may cause frustration, self-contempt and a lack of a sense of belonging, as well as increasing reliance on others. Studies and analyses, such as those conducted by the Child Welfare Information Gateway, indicate that there are long-term physical, psychological, behavioral, and societal consequences of child abuse and that abused children are significantly more likely to live in fear and to avoid social interaction.   Child abuse over the long term may lead to a lack of physical activity, poor mental and emotional health, problems with speech, language and interpersonal skills, as well as learning difficulties and behavioral problems such as stealing, violence, loss of control and future abuse of others.   Thus, GNRD believes that laws and regulations must be applied and sanctions must be tightened in order reduce offences and crimes in order to help prevent child abuse.   In addition, it is important for states to ensure they ensure they actively comply with international standards on child labour laws and ensure they provide good care for all children, as well as raising awareness on the topic in order to support the global effort to eradicate child abuse.   Promote children''s rights through hearing individual complaints in the United Nations   The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by 194 countries, is the fundamental international human rights instrument aimed at protecting and ensuring the rights of children, according to their best interests. International compliance with this Convention is monitored by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which is composed of members from countries around the world.   Other international instruments that defend and support children include the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.   In the case of government endorsement, the Optional Protocol on the provision of complaints ensures that the UN Commission on Human Rights will issue specific recommendations to be implemented by the state in cases of child abuse.   The Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD) confirms that the abuse of children and causing their suffering is a violation of international law and cannot be tolerated.   We urgently calls on the international community to take all necessary measures to prevent violations against and abuse of the child. 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