• Transparency

Access to Information and Transparency

Inadequate governance at the local level affects the poor in many ways, often enhancing exclusion. Lack of participation means that the poor often do not have a choice in determining their own development needs and priorities. Bureaucratic, complex and non-transparent municipal administrative practices lead to lower revenues, which in turn results in less spending on social programmes to benefit the poor. Non-responsive allocation of resources can lead to a disproportionate spending on the priorities of the better-off rather than on those of the poor. Non-transparent land allocation practices push the poor to the urban periphery and hazardous areas prone to earthquakes, landslides and floods, depriving them of secure access to a major productive asset.

This toolkit offers a collection of practical tools that civil society organisations and other advocacy groups can use in their efforts to 'clean up' local governments. The toolkit highlights the potential for civil society to create mechanisms for scrutiny and control of public institutions and to demand and promote accountable and responsive public administration.

Key points emphasised throughout the guide include:

• transparency is a strategic entry point for fostering public participation and promoting good urban governance. An approach based on the core principles of good urban governance will be the most effective strategy for enhancing accountability and successfully weeding out of corruption at the local level 
  
• there has never been a greater need to focus on transparency at the local level. The forces of urbanisation, globalisation, decentralisation and democratisation create a climate of rapid change that offer many opportunities and challenges 
  
• the quality of urban governance can mean the difference between cities characterised by prosperity and inclusiveness and cities characterised by decline and social exclusion 
  
• pomoting transparency through the application public education, public participation, e-governance, ethics and institutional reform instruments can result in a number of benefits such as reducing citizen apathy, increasing city revenues, and raise ethical standards.
  

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