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Partner Spotlight: Thailand Environment Institute, a non-governmental organization focusing on environmental issues with a participatory approach to shared environmental responsibility.

Interview with: Wannipa Soda, TEI Project Manager.

Project Title: Strengthening the Right to Information to Improve Public Health and Environmental Quality

Q: What is the Strengthening the Right to Information to Improve Public Health and Environmental Quality project about?

This is a project initiated by The Access Initiative in order to strengthen a community’s capacity to use their right to information as said in Thailand’s Official Information Act. B.E. 1997 and provide access to environmental and public health information associated with air and water pollution.

Q: How is this project unique to the Thailand Environmental Institute?

In 2008, the Thailand Environment Institute (TEI), along with a coalition of groups, submitted a letter of recommendation on types of environmental and health information that the Office Information Commission (OIC) should be proactively making available to people. Two years later, the OIC announced on June 7, 2010 that information on environment and health must be available for people to monitor, as stipulated in Section 9 (8) of Thailand’s Official Information Act B.E. 2540 (1997).

This project’s implementation in Thailand is not only aimed to increase/improve capability of people in community to seek access to environmental and health information but investigate the implementation of section 9 (8) after the announcement of OIC in June 2010 whether environmental and health information is actually made available publicly.

Q: What advice can you give to other CSO’s who want to implement something similar?

Form a good coalition with those who have common interests and are willing to participate throughout project implementation. The coalition should include all parties involved in the process such as community, local and central government agencies, environmental health specialists, and right to information law experts.

Q: What are some of the challenges you have had to overcome?

One issue TEI has faced is dealing with government agencies who do not understand their legal mandates in providing information to people. They also lack knowledge of what information should be disclosed.

Another challenge has been encouraging people in community to apply skills learned through the project to obtain information they want. Though they have learned how to use their right to Official Information Act B.E. 2540 (1997) and how to get information from government agencies, some of them still use the original method of getting information they want, which is to obtain a response to a question through personal connections.

Q: Why is this project so important?

This project allows us to test right to information laws in Thailand, a country with well-established right to information laws in place, such as the Official Information Act. B.E. 2540 (1997). However, the system for releasing environmental information about air and water pollution is new and untested. Most of the information released is too technical and irrelevant to communities in industrial zones.

The implementation of this project will empower communities in industrial zones to improve their capacity to access information which is important to their environmental heath. We anticipate that through enhancing communities’ right to information, they will then utilize their right to public participation, right to health, right to healthy environment, and thus government transparency and environmental democracy will follow.