The eight-year approval process of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in Brazil is one of the most recent in Latin America, since the law was finally passed in 2011. In this podcast, Paula Martins, lawyer and Coordinator of the Brazil office of the civil society organisation Article 19, analyses the contextual factors that enabled the approval of this law in Brazil, after providing a brief summary of the approval process itself. Among the contextual factors that she identifies are the political will of the federal executive, the pressure exerted by civil society and the media, and Brazil’s commitment to the international community through its membership in The Open Government Partnership.