Jurisprudence and Lessons Learned from the first 100 Appeals under the Access to Information Policy Note

Overview & Synopsis

As of June 2025, the World Bank (Bank) has decided on 100 appeals submitted to the Access to Information Committee (AIC) pursuant to the Access to Information (ATI) Policy. Out of the 100 appeals, 18 were further referred to the Access to Information Appeals Board (AIAB) for a second-level appeal. This note identifies and summarizes the valuable jurisprudence and most prominent lessons learned to date, which have helped pragmatically improve the implementation of the ATI Policy (Note). While there are many methods to group and organize the jurisprudence and lessons learned, this Note focuses on identifying the first decisions on appeals under the ATI Policy that had their approach in law consistently applied by the AIC in subsequent decisions. Such identification is based on a contemporaneous record of the decisions on appeals. Any jurisprudence that was codified in the Bank Directive: ATI Policy is not referred to in this Note; this applies to redaction and how Boad of Governors’ information is treated under the ATI Policy. With respect to lessons learned, while it is common to have more than one lesson from each appeal, only the most prominent lessons are reflected in this Note. This Note contains Part 1 listing the jurisprudence so identified; Part 2 listing the lessons learned, and a conclusion section summarizing the findings from Parts 1 and 2.