Concept Note
Last modified: 2010/07/15The Pursuit of Access to Information in Africa: Towards a Platform of Action
A Campaign for an African Platform on Access to Information – APAI
1.0. Introduction
The perception of knowledge and information as abstract concepts can no longer hold, because their power to make or destroy lives is immeasurable. The adage that “information is power” has never been more meaningful in an age where information is at the centre of political, social and economic life. Today more than any period in history, information rules; those who have information at their disposal have power, those who can control its flow have even more power.
The media, the rich and governments are perceived as powerful, because separately and collectively they control not only information, but how it flows, to whom and when. On the contrary those without information, otherwise known as the ignorant, are left to suffer. James Madison, one of America’s founding fathers, said it better; “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.”
Referred to as Access to Information, Freedom of Information, the Right to Know, and the Right to Information, all these phrases point to the importance of making available information held by public- and, in some cases, private- institutions, and ensuring that it is also accessible to citizens. The challenge is not merely a call for government records, but also a call for transparency and accountability in the governance process.
The underlying philosophy of the right of access to information is aptly captured in the Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression in Africa, adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 2002, which states that: Public bodies hold information not for themselves, but as custodians of the public good and everyone has a right to access this information, subject only to clearly defined rules established by law.[1]”
Current advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) provide a further enabling environment that can potentially empower both state and citizenry to use ICTs in order to ensure that information is also accessible in actual practice – and that this information adds to communicative dialogue in the interests of development and democracy.
2.o. Why the focus?
2.1. Tool for fighting corruption
Apart from being a basic right, information and the right to its access have been proven to be central in the fight against corruption. The UN, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Union, all recognize access to information as an “important guard against abuses, mismanagement and corruption” (Banisar 2006)[2]. This view is backed by research demonstrating a direct link between the lack of information and corruption, because citizens cannot question what they don’t know. Transparency therefore is a key component of the access to information conception.
It is no coincidence that the ten richest and least corrupt countries have laws or practices guaranteeing access to information, while the ten poorest and highly corrupt countries have neither policies nor practices promoting access to information (TI 2005)
2.2. As a Socio-Economic Right
The enjoyment of other social and economic rights of health, education and employment inherently depend on the availability of information. Viewed as the cornerstone of all freedoms by the United Nations as far back as 1946, information is essential to enjoy or exercise the right to vote, or to a clean and healthy environment or make informed choices.
In South Africa in 2007, using the Promotion of Access to Information Act, a community sought to establish why despite a constitutional guarantee, they still had no access to clean water. The records released by their local government authority revealed that there were plans for delivery of the service and this then allowed the community to keep government accountable in the implementation of those plans and to demand dialogue with those in authority whenever there were deviations from those plans. It was a result of that demand of and access to information that the responsible municipal government delivered water for the first time in the history of that community.
In Mexico, kidney patients received transplants, after filing information requests to find out from government why they where being left to die when the constitution guaranteed every Mexican the right to life.
In her speech to the Brookings institute in Washington, the founding member of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Aruna Roy said: “Our slogan is ‘the right to know, the right to live’, because what does lack of information deny us? It denies us food. It denies us a minimum wage. It denies medicine in a hospital. It denies us a policeman not lodging a report against us, for us, with us, against somebody else in the police station. It involves very basic things. So for us the right to know is really the right to live.”
2.3 As a capacitating factor
An informed population can better its situation through converting information to applicable knowledge. In turn, that requires not just rights and practical access to information, but also information literacy skills. What is therefore important is that access to information includes developing citizen’s capacities to distinguish between information and disinformation, what is public and what is private, what is ethical and what is not. Further, there is the need for skilling the public to manage its information reception and consumption in a knowledgeable way – not least, by exploiting ICTs to the full. It is also widely recognized today that effective development and democracy require interactive communication and dialogue, in which quality information can serve as the currency of social creation and self-actualization.
3.0. Global State of Access to Information
Hailed as a basis for effective participation in governance as well as potentially a powerful tool for countering corruption and empowering people, information has become an issue of global importance. By 2006, more than 80 countries had entrenched the Right to Information in their constitutions close to 70 had access to information legislation, and another 50 had bills waiting to be passed (Banisar 2006). In many countries, ICT is making governmental information available to citizens on an unprecedented scale, and the notion of “media literacy” is becoming a reality in some places.
3.1. State of Access to Information in Africa
There are only four countries in Africa with access to information laws; South Africa, Uganda, Angola and recently Ethiopia. This is a dire picture given that Africa has 54 countries. In a continent where much underdevelopment and poverty is directly linked to corruption, the call for access to information has never been more urgent.
Although Africa is lagging behind some other regions of the world, there are indicators showing positive developments and in some cases high momentum. At the beginning of the millennium, not one African country had laws or policies promoting citizens’ access to information. Ten years later, as noted above, four countries have such laws, while 15 have bills waiting to be passed into law. Another 20 have begun legislative processes to ensure that access to information is either guaranteed by constitution or by law. There are steps in some cases to e-governance and to facilitating free flows of information as a means for the public to distinguish truth from falsehood and sift useful from useless information.
4.0. African Platform on Access to Information (APAI)
2011 will mark 20 years after the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom. At the time of the Declaration in 1991, press freedom was a farfetched idea for many African countries in that all media was under the sole ownership and heavy control of the state. The Africa envisaged in the Windhoek Declaration of 1991 is still a far cry from the repressive media environments characteristic in several African countries. But two decades later, a lot has changed. In many African countries now, press freedom and/or freedom of expression are constitutional rights and the media market is diverse, liberalized and growing.
In the first decade after Windhoek, major political and legal strides were achieved throughout the continent. Indeed the Declaration was also subsequently endorsed by UNESCO and the UN General Assembly, thereby institutionalising the 3 May on the global calendar as “World Press Freedom Day”.
Against this background, at the Windhoek +10 conference in 2001, the right to press freedom was extended to include broadcasting freedom, through the adoption of the African Charter on Broadcasting, which calls for three tier system of broadcasting to include community, public and private broadcasters while calling for the independence of the public broadcasters and broadcasting regulator. The Charter in turn fed into the influential Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression, as adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights of the African Union.
In the last decade, the issue of access to information has become a monumental one. The realisation that information is indispensable in exercising meaningful expression and that information is the cornerstone of accessing all other social and economic rights, the call for citizens’ access to information has never been more urgent. If press freedom was the urgent issue 20 years ago, and broadcasting diversity the issue 10 years ago, access to information is the current and urgent issue today. Africa needs a platform of Action on Access to Information and the Windhoek +20 offers the ideal and natural platform to trigger this action.
4.1. Strategies
4.1.0. Committee on African Platform on Access to Information
In the months leading to the Windhoek +10 three organisations led by MISA came together to form a committee calling itself the Independent Broadcasting Army (IBA) whose mandate was to do all necessary groundwork to influence and ensure the adoption of the African Charter of Broadcasting at the Windhoek +10 conference.
This model was repeated during the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), in Tunis and Geneva in 2003 to ensure that African perspectives on Information and Communication Technology where mainstreamed at the summit.
Following this lead, a Working Group on the African Platform on Access to Information has also been set up. It intends to adopt a similar model for the campaign for the African Platform on Access to Information.
4.1.1. Actions
- Constitute a Working Group of five organisations, whose main role is to strategize, define roles, develop and oversee implementation of a plan of action. A first meeting of the Working Group took place in October 2009.
- Develop campaign materials and literature including access to information principles.
- Develop a website for the campaign.
- Pitch the concept at the African Regional Conference on Access to Information (arranged by the Carter Center), in Accra, Ghana, in February 2010.
- Convene a series of engagements with the AU, UNESCO, experts and other officials to discuss a Plan of Action and procedures necessary for the adoption of a continental position that advances access to information in all its dimensions.
- Produce publications on state of access to information in regions around the continent.
- Conduct region specific research on women’s access to information in areas such as reproductive and sexual health.
- Convene a preparatory conference in November 2010 bringing together diverse key players from across the continent to deliberate on access to information. The conference will primarily discuss and hopefully endorse a draft African Plan of Action on Access to Information.
- Participate/Co-organise Windhoek +20 Conference in May 2011, and produce a declaration that could be taken up internationally as a basis to deepen access to information around the world, and especially in Africa. It could be that the conference could help ensure that 28 September, the informal International Right to Know Day, becomes a UN-recognized annual occasion to advance the case of information access on a global scale.
5.0. Crediting
All campaign materials and publications will give full credit to funding partners including their logos. Funding partners are welcome to be present at all meetings (at their own expense).
[2] Banisar, D. 2006, Freedom of Information Around the World 2006: A Global
Survey of Access to Government Information Laws, Privacy International,
London.
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