Following work that led to IFLA’s 2018 Statement on Open Access in Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs), we’re happy to release updated analysis of how open content licensing approaches are. This highlights some progress, but much work still to do to facilitate the dissemination and uptake of publications. 

The concepts of Open Access and Open Government are now well established, both building on an understanding that there are important benefits from maximising possibilities to access and reuse information.

There are both advantages in terms of equity and in effectiveness, as relevant information can more more readily applied and re-shared with new audiences.

Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs) exist in order to advance public interest goals, and have a unique ability to bring together information and knowledge across borders in order to achieve these. And yet it remains rare that they adopt approaches to licensing their publications that actively encourage such use.

IFLA carried out research around this in 2018, and produced a statement calling for an acceleration of efforts to open up publications.

Six years on, and with the news that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development was adopting a strong new Open Access policy, we have repeated the underlying analysis. This also coincides with a strong focus on the importance of knowledge management and dissemination in the imminent UN Pact for the Future.

The analysis makes the following key points:

  • The Intergovernmental Organisation (IGO) space continues to be characterised by a diversity of approaches to licensing of the materials they publish, including between different materials from the same organisation
  • Despite the limits this places on possibilities to reuse and apply insights from their publications, many IGOs continue to use restrictive terms. Nonetheless, there are possibilities to strengthen the uptake of standardised open licences (such as Creative Commons)
  • A more harmonised approach to licensing, as well as investment in repositories and clearer information would also support reuse of UN work. This would be in line with the UN 2.0 agenda.

You can read the full analysis, including a data annex covering 56 different organisations on our Repository.