Two Knight International Journalism Fellows -- Justin Arenstein and I -- attended the first summit of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) on April 17 and 18 in Brazil to see how this new movement can influence our work.

The meeting of the group, founded by the presidents of Brazil and the United States in September 2011, marked the official launch of a global effort to promote the principles of transparency and open data in the public sector. Altogether 55 countries have already joined the OGP, including the United Kingdom and the new governments of Tunisia and Libya.

The summit marked a turning point on making public data easily accessible to journalists, companies and the general public. Instead of just relying on experts and sources within the government to obtain information, journalists will be able to compare official opinions and analysis with the raw data that is now expected to be available, thanks to this multilateral initiative.

My Knight Fellowship project, for example, relays a great deal of satellite data about deforestation and forest fires that are released with daily frequency by space agencies in Brazil and the U.S. I had a nice opportunity to talk about that with The Guardian newspaper during a short interview just after the last plenary of the OGP meeting. See the video of our discussion here.

The meeting in Brasilia also helped us understand the different ways “open government” and “open data” are interpreted at this particular moment. Tim Kelsey, who directly advises UK Prime Minister David Cameron on these themes, has talked about companies that are thriving thanks to applications built on public data. The Economist magazine recently explored the issue in an interesting article called “Riding the Data Wave”.

Although voluntary, governments have presented a set of targets to speed access to raw data. The host country, Brazil, for example, has promised to create an Internet portal where all the information about investments for the 2014 World Cup will be released. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who spoke at the opening ceremony for the summit, also mentioned the newly approved law in the country, which guarantees access to information to any citizen and ends eternal secrecy placed on documents.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, who were also present at the meeting, announced that the United States was joining the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative. “The best disinfectant is sunlight,” Salazar stressed, referring to how more transparency and access to data can combat corruption.