Wednesday 27 December 2017

Information is empowering

  • Information: Facts provided or learned about something or someone. 
  • Knowledge: Information and skills acquired through experience or education. The theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
  • Information is only a means to empowerment. Knowledge is power and sharing knowledge is empowering
  • Information is free. Knowledge is not.
  • Information is empowering. It can make us stronger, more confident, more in control and more able to claim our rights. It enables us to grow and learn. It helps us to make good decisions, engage with each other, build knowledge, create informed communities, connect globally, and in many other ways. 
  • Information provides individuals with knowledge to address public issues, scrutinize government and become active participants in the democratic process. It reveals and clarifies the basis for government decisions, discloses environmental and health dangers and sheds light on error, mismanagement and illegal activities.
  • Facts and figures doesn't speak for themselves. They have to be examined and interpreted by reason. Information results in improved records management, prompts routine disclosure of information, and results in better government services and efficiencies.
  • Unless information is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit.
  • Information is power, but interpretation is more powerful. Data taken out of context can have unintended consequences. Transparency alone is not the great equalizer. When we're overloaded with information, wisdom is obscured.  

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; 
this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, 
receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers 
... United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

In common use almost every word has many shades of meaning, 
and therefore needs to be interpreted by the context ... Alfred Marshall

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