and groups. 4. 5. 6. Women: Governments, civil society and the media have an obligation to facilitate women’s equal access to information, so that they can defend their rights and participate in public life. Civil society organisations should be encouraged to make the best use of access to information mechanisms to monitor governments’ fulfilment of commitments to further gender equality, to demand the enhanced delivery of services targeted at women and to ensure that the public funds they are entitled to actually reach them. The collection, management and release of information should be gender disaggregated. Children and Youth: Governments have an obligation to encourage the mass media to disseminate information and material of social and cultural benefit to children and the youth. Governments are further encouraged to facilitate the exchange and dissemination of such information and material from a diversity of cultural, national and international sources as well as the production and dissemination of information specifically for children and youth and wherever reasonably possible facilitate and encourage access to such information by children and youth. mation and civil society organisations´ demand for such information, as well as engagement in decision-making processes and the ability to hold governments and other actors accountable for actions affecting the environment should be strengthened. 7. Education: Taking into account the close connection between the right of access to information and the right to education, governments have the duty to make publicly available information about educational policies and assessments of their impacts, school performance data, and budgets for education at all government levels. Governments also have a positive obligation to provide information for each school, in particular, schools´ admission policies and admission lists, information on management practices, school governance, and other relevant aspects. 8. Health: Governments have a duty to provide access to information with a view to ensuring and improving access to health care services and enhancing accountability regarding their provision. Civil society actors should be encouraged to implement actions to expand the reach of this type of information to all sectors in society, promote the exercise of the right to information to advance the right to health and counter its violations, undertake advocacy and monitoring actions and directly involve individuals in them. Enhanced access to health-related information shall not preclude the protection of individuals´ right to privacy. 6 Environmental Information: Governments and inter-governmental organisations should increase their efforts in implementing Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development on the right of access to information, public participation and access to justice on environmental issues. Governments should adopt appropriate legislation and regulations to promote access and proactive release of environmental information, guarantee openness, fight secrecy in institutional practices, and repeal that which hinders public availability of environmental information. Governments´ capacity to supply environmental infor- 9. The Fight Against Corruption: By contributing to openness and accountability, access to information can be a useful tool in anti-corruption efforts. Besides ensuring that access to information legislation is effectively implemented, governments have a duty to guarantee a broader legal and institutional framework conducive to preventing and combatting corruption. Civil So This is Democracy? 2015 123