Researchers and NGO leaders said the push to pass the proposed draft of the RTI Bill has not turned into a 'movement' as yet, but it is slowly gathering pace.

Organised by the World Bank Institute, the two-day workshop on 'Media and Information Environment in Bangladesh' focused on international RTI laws and their implementation, lessons learned in this regard in Bangladesh and how they can be moved forward.

The Daily Star, Channel i and Mass-line Media Centre were the partners of the workshop.

Naomi Hossain of the Centre for Governance Studies, Brac University, said young civil servants should be the target of awareness campaign as they are willing to change themselves and change the 'culture of secrecy' in the bureaucracy.

Enacting the right to information law is needed to ensure accountability in social welfare and development, she added.

Shaheen Anam, executive director of Manusher Jonno Foundation, said the people need to know why they should have access to information.

She suggested arranging public hearings at the grassroots level on various issues such as transparency in ration card distribution and cost of road constructions.

She also urged the leading NGOs like Brac, Proshika and Asa to take the message down to villages of what it means to have the law and how it would positively affect their lives.

The culture of secrecy may go if a 'win-win' situation is created whereby the people would benefit from transparent public information system and the government can showcase the positive effects of their programmes, she said.

Outlining the Mexican laws relating to the access to information, Juan Pablo Guerrero Amparan, commissioner of the Federal Institute for Access to Public Information (IFAI) in Mexico, said the laws require the government to publish certain materials online, especially the results of government audits and civic participation mechanism.

He also presented the operations of the IFAI, an independent agency that supervises the access to information laws and helps enforce them.

The participants, including media leaders, development practitioners and academics, also offered strategies to move the RTI Bill forward, saying mass awareness programmes should be launched on the media and through various other means such as play, song and poster.

Stressing the need to adopt the RTI Bill at the earliest, they also suggested holding a series of dialogues with politicians, government agencies, the media, donors and training institutes to formulate a more effective and comprehensive strategy to push the RTI Bill forward.