Reform Description

Development of a Right to Information (RTI) Compliance Toolkit for State Institutions

Problem(s) Addressed by Reform

The absence of a comprehensive, practical implementation toolkit is a significant contributing factor to the persistent institutional gaps documented in successive monitoring exercises. While the RTI Act and Regulation set out clear legal obligations, and ICO and Transparency Maldives have developed and published an RTI Manual and an Information Officer’s Handbook, as well as general practical guides for information requesters together with periodic training for Information Officers, no single, consolidated resource currently exists that walks Heads of Institutions, Information Officers and Review Committees through their respective responsibilities in a structured, step-by-step manner, supported by ready-to-use templates and standard operating procedures. This persistent implementation gap contributes to delayed responses to RTI requests, as well as hesitation among institutions and officials to share information both upon request and proactively.

- Provides clear, step-by-step guidance on the institutional frameworks and role-specific responsibilities of Heads of Institutions, Information Officers, and Review Committees under the RTI Act and Regulation, supported by practical checklists, workflows, templates, and standard operating procedures;

- Strengthens timely and consistent processing of RTI requests by providing practical procedures, decision-making guidance, and standard tools for receiving, assessing, processing, responding to, and reviewing information requests;

- Strengthens compliance with proactive disclosure obligations under Sections 36(a) and 37 of the RTI Act by providing practical guidance and tools to help institutions identify, organise, approve, publish, and regularly update information for proactive disclosure;

- Guides the improvement of institutional information and records management practices in support of both proactive and reactive disclosure, including practical procedures and templates for information classification, record-keeping, retrieval, and disclosure;

- Standardises and simplifies data reporting to ICO, including the annual reporting obligations under Section 42 of the Act, through standard reporting formats, checklists, and guidance;

- Embeds inclusive and gender-responsive practice throughout institutional RTI service delivery, so that information management practices explicitly account for the needs of women, persons with disabilities, elderly persons, low-literacy requesters, migrant workers, and requesters in remote areas; and

- Is practical, modular, and readily adaptable by public authorities of widely varying size, capacity, and resourcing, enabling institutions to apply the toolkit proportionately while maintaining consistent minimum standards for RTI implementation.

Relevance to OGP Values

The design of the Toolkit will be grounded in a systematic review of the empirical evidence on RTI implementation in the Maldives, most importantly the April 2025 Assessment on the Implementation of the Right to Information Act,  conducted jointly by ICO and Transparency Maldives using the Centre for Law and Democracy's comprehensive RTI Implementation Assessment methodology, and cross-referenced against earlier proactive-disclosure monitoring exercises conducted in 2017, 2018, 2022 and 2023. The toolkit will aid in the improvements in the areas of Central Measures performance of the ICO, Institutional Measures: Performance of Public Authorities, Independence and Institutional Planning of State Institutions, Proactive Disclosure Compliance and Reactive Disclosure Performance in the delivery of information requested under the Right to Information Act.

Seven guiding principles, derived from the legal review, the evidence synthesis and the comparative best-practice review, will govern the design and drafting of every Toolkit component:
- Legal accuracy and currency: every guidance note, SOP and template will be directly traceable to a specific provision and cross-checked against the RTI Act and/or the RTI Regulation (2024).

- Practicality and low administrative burden: materials will be designed for immediate, minimal-adaptation use by institutions of every size, from small island councils/ schools to large ministries and SOEs.

- Role-differentiation: content will be clearly organised and visually differentiated by target audience (Heads of Institutions, Information Officers, Review Committees).

- Modularity and incremental usability: the Toolkit will be structured as a set of discrete, independently usable modules and standalone documents rather than a single monolithic manual, so that a busy Information Officer can locate and apply a single relevant SOP or template without needing to read the entire Toolkit end-to-end, and so that ICO can update or expand individual components over time without revising the entire resource.

- Ownership and institutional voice: the Toolkit will be developed through structured consultation with ICO and a representative cross-section of the public authorities, ensuring the final product reflects the operational realities and institutional voice of public authorities.

- Bilingual accessibility: all guidance notes, SOPs and public-facing templates will be developed in both Dhivehi and English.

- Explicit inclusivity and gender-responsiveness: inclusivity and gender-responsiveness will be integrated as a cross-cutting methodological principle applied to every module.

Intended Results

A comprehensive Right to Information Toolkit targeting state and public institutions disclosure and information management developed that provides:

-  Guidance for the Head of the Institution and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for appointing Information Officers (IOs) and Review Committees (RC), including protocols for when IOs are on leave and procedural guidance for RC ICO hearings 

- Comprehensive guidance and functional templates for public bodies to disclose information proactively, including schedules for periodic review and verification. 

- General and internal institutional information management guidance and functional tracking templates for RTI requests ensuring institutions can monitor response times and completion status. 

- Guidance and templates for the Annual Report to the Information Commissioner providing state and public institutions a structured approach to aggregate their RTI data for statutory reporting 

- Materials for RTI familiarization within institutions, specifically targeting public-facing staff and information holders 

Milestones

- Draft RTI Toolkit Content based on stakeholder consultation 

- Stakeholder Validation and Finalization of Toolkit and Materials (including government beneficiaries, CSO’s, OPDs, RTI activities. 

- Translation and publishing of Toolkit and Materials in English and Dhivehi (local language) language.  

Is Civil Society Involved?

Yes.

This activity is supported by UNDP Maldives, through its project “Strengthening Open Governance, Anti-corruption and Gender Justice in Maldives,” supported by the UNDP funding window.