The African Platform on Access to Information (APAI) Campaign

The APAI working group was formed in 2009 in order to initiate a campaign to promote Access to Information in Africa around the twentieth anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration on Press Freedom.  It consists of a core group of organisations with expertise in issues relating to Freedom of Expression and Access to Information. The working group includes the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), Article 19 (East and West Africa), Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC), the Open Democracy Advice Centre (ODAC), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Media Rights Agenda (MRA), Highway Africa (HA), The African Editors Forum (TAEF), and the Media Foundation of West Africa (MFWA).
The Group was tasked with:

• Developing a campaign around Access to Information that would educate government, civil society, media stakeholders, and the public about their right to access information.

• Forming partnerships with international and regional organisations, civil society and media stakeholders.

• Drafting a regional declaration that would set out the principles of Access to Information, and lobbying for its adoption at a regional (AU) and international (UN) level.

• Lobbying national governments to ensure that national Access to Information legislation is enacted.

• Calling for a Right to Information day to be celebrated on September 28
th each year.
• Organising a Pan African Conference on Access to Information, which would bring together experts from all over the continent, and see the signing and adoption of a Regional Declaration.
• September of 2011 saw the largest meeting of experts on Access to Information convene in Cape Town at the Pan African Conference on Access to Information.

• After months of public commentary, consultations and working group meetings, the final draft of the African Platform on Access to Information (APAI) Declaration was finalised, signed and adopted in Cape Town in on 19 September 2011.

• National lobbying efforts have intensified, with the conference in Cape Town been attended by Ministers and Parliamentarians from Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana, Uganda, and South Africa, amongst others.

• The working group has successful partnerships with numerous organisations, including the African Union Commission (AUC), the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Freedom of Expression and Opinion, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO),

• September 28th, currently celebrated as ‘Right to Know’ day, was celebrated by launching a signatory campaign. Organisations spanning the length and width of the continent have pledged their support.