Many inter-governmental bodies hold information about decisions which affect our lives. These include the European Union and financial bodies such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the African Development Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the United Nations Development Programme.

The EU has access to documents rules, which makes sense because it is a supranational rather than an intergovernmental body. There is still a lot of discussion about whether the right of access to information applies to intergovernmental organizations because they are outside the scope of national laws and also do not sign international human rights treaties. Thanks to the work of campaigning groups such as the Global Transparency Initiative, many of the key inter-governmental organizations that are active in the aid world do have internal rules which are a bit like national access to information laws. These are called “disclosure policies” or “access to information policies”. For more information visit the Global Transparency Initiative website.