Sweden was the first nation to adopt freedom of information law (FOI) in 1766. Colombia followed in 1888, Finland in 1951, the United States in 1966 and so on until 2008, when 70 plus countries have adopted FOI. This period of diffusion covers over 2000 years and it begs the question: how is it possible to make sense of the changes that have occurred throughout the regions of the world over this time-frame?
Well, a short video by Hans Rosling, forwarded to me by my all seeing supervisor, might help. In the video [posted below] Rosling conveniently tracks and compares the development of Sweden between 1709 and 2004, with the use of some spectacular graphics. At the start Sweden is comparable with current day Sierra Leone, but by 2004 the Swedish nation has progressed to a stage where life expectancy is around 80 years and per capita GDP is roughly US$20,000.
The video is most interesting because we’re able to see just how different the FOI nations, which range from Iceland, Uganda, India, Angola, Uzbekistan, Germany and Azerbaijan, are as Rosling demonstrate exactly how they compare to the situation of Sweden in different times and in the current period. For instance, Uganda implemented FOI in 2005, a year in which life expectancy and per capita GDP of that country were equivalent to the Sweden of…….1877.
Conclusion: a lot has happened since FOI was first conceived in 1766 and there are great, great differences in terms of development between the countries that have rapidly embraced the reform in recent years.
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