Today, on September 11, the Freedom of Information Center presented the Transparency  and Freedom of Information Index, with the help of which, for the first time in Armenia, the transparency level of the state administration bodies has been evaluated. On the basis of more than fifty criteria developed, experts of the Freedom of Information Center will from now on perform evaluation of state administration bodies every year, providing their annual transparency ratings. Thirty-seven state administration bodies have been evaluated this year including all ministries, marzpetarans (regional governors’ offices), and agencies adjunct to the Government.

This year the list of the top five agencies included: Armavir Marzpetaran with 80 points, Ministry of Justice with 78 points, Syuniq and Vayots Dzor Marzpetarans with 76 points each. The worst results were provided by the National Security Service with its 31.5 points, the State Nuclear Safety Regulatory Committee Adjunct to the Government with 37.5 points, the General Department of Civil Aviation Adjunct to the Government with 41 points, Ministries of Sport and Youth Affairs and Energy and Natural Resources with 41.5 points.

The RA Government, the National Assembly and the Office to the President have also been evaluated this year. All three agencies, with all the rich and diverse recourses they own, have recorded fairly low indicators: 55.5, 45.5, and 47.5 points, respectively.

The evaluation criteria developed by FOICA are divided into three core groups.

In the first section, “Right on freedom of information”, there are questions are that help evaluate how the Information Possessor (hereafter IP) performs its responsibility of providing information to people based on the FOI inquiries. The 2nd section of the Index includes questions related to proactive (at own initiative) provision by the IP of freedom, transparency  and accessibility of information. Given the importance of initiative from the state in ensuring publicity and transparency, this section includes the largest group of criteria and, therefore, provides the most points. The 3rd section evaluates the appropriateness of the resources of IP according to two core groups of criteria: whether the IP has sufficient human (professional) resources, educated/trained employees, and to what extend the IP uses different tools for ensuring publicity.

The Data of all agencies can be accessed at: www.foi.am/en/rating. The evaluation period includes September 2013 to September 2014. Next year comparative data by years will also be available in the website.

Transparency  and Freedom of Information Index has been developed by the Freedom of Information Center, through financial support of USAID.