Media literacy crucial to open government – Librarian

Access to information and freedom of expression laws based on international standards are the basic requirement for open government, the Chief Executive Office of the National Library, Mallam Habib Jato, has said. He made the remarks during the UNESCO International Conference on Information for all Programmes (IFAD) with the theme: Media and Information Literacy for […]

Access to information and freedom of expression laws based on international standards are the basic requirement for open government, the Chief Executive Office of the National Library, Mallam Habib Jato, has said.
He made the remarks during the UNESCO International Conference on Information for all Programmes (IFAD) with the theme: Media and Information Literacy for Building Culture of Open Government in Khanty-Marsiyok, Russian Federation on June 7, according to a statement he signed.
He said media and information literacy has empowered the societies all over the world to determine choices and actions that might be of positive consequences while governments were able to make informed decisions in governance as they were able to critically evaluate the contents of media and information available for use at any given moment thus, building the culture of open government.
He said, “The culture of open government entails high level of transparency and mechanisms for public scrutiny and oversight in place with emphasis on government accountability.”
Jato, who was the African Regional Chairman of IFAD UNESCO, said Nigerian government had over the years been committed to openness and had put in place the right to freedom of information.