Over the last two decades, since the first national access to information legislation in Africa was adopted by the Republic of South Africa in February 2000, the continent has embraced the right to information, recognising it as critical to the enthronement and consolidation of participatory democracy, economic development and the advancement of its peoples.
On 19 September 2011, nearly 1,000 African information and media stakeholders, joined by partners and collaborators from other parts of the world, adopted a landmark declaration of the African Platform on Access to Information (APAI) at a special session of the Africa Information and Media Summit held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 17 to 19 September 2011. Follow this link for full story on the formation of APAI
The Journey
Four years earlier, in 2015, APAI had successfully lobbied the UNESCO General Conference to adopt 38 C/Resolution 57, declaring 28 September as the International Day for Universal Access to Information. Getting UNGA to do the same would pave the way for global recognition and ensure that the intervention contributed to accelerating development outcomes in Africa through ATI. On behalf of their APAI colleagues, three advocates undertook the final sprint to lobby for the adoption of the International Day for Universal Access to Information(IDUAI): Gilbert Sendugwa, Executive Director at the Africa Freedom of Information Centre; Edetaen Ojo, Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda; and Zoe Titus, Director of the Namibia Media Trust.
For them, this moment was the equivalent to crossing the finish line of a triathlon replete with seemingly insurmountable impediments with only a smattering of some lucky breaks.
For Gilbert, Edetaen and Zoe, that special day was the culmination of years of planning, strategising, lobbying and advocating with, and on behalf of, their APAI peers. At the beginning of the lobbying, they knocked on door after door of those with leverage, first in Africa, then Paris, Washington and New York, and back again. Towards the end, they almost wore off the soles of their shoes as they pounded the pavements of Manhattan, in and around the UN headquarters. So when the news came through, of course, it was momentous.
Gilbert
As I waited for the UN General Assembly to consider the resolution, I was both anxious and restless. It did not help that I was on a mission in Banjul, The Gambia, where, as a member of the joint African Union and European Union civil society steering committee on Africa’s partnership with Europe, I was hosting a seminar for civil society from Africa and Europe to discuss human rights and democracy in both continents. My thoughts were divided between the workshop I was involved with in Banjul and the status of the resolution in New York.
I was responsible for ensuring that everything goes right – that officials from the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Union and European Union were present and able to give their speeches, making sure that they are properly attended to and they have the information and attention they deserve.
Upon receiving the news of the passage of this all-important resolution, I informed the colleagues who were with me at that time – Ambassador Salah Hammad, the Head of the African Governance Architecture, Secretariat at the African Union and Omar Faruk from the National Union of journalists of Somalia. There was instant celebration.
In the last 23 years of my career, I have campaigned for several resolutions and decisions at the level of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, UNESCO, the African Union, United Nations Special Procedures, and various parliaments on the passage of access to information laws, and other decisions, but the news of the adoption of September 28, as an International Day for Universal Access to
Information was the most special, exciting and yet humbling of those experiences.
Edetaen
I was at my reading desk at home in Lagos when I got the information. I had been monitoring the process from my office in Lagos. But as you know, New York is five hours behind and nothing had come through when I left the office and when I got home I didn’t go to bed. I was constantly reaching out to colleagues like Gilbert, Malcolm Joseph, our colleague in Liberia, who had a very close relationship with the Liberian ambassador to the UN.
My question throughout the day was: Have you heard anything? It was quite exhilarating when I got the news that it had actually been adopted without a vote, which meant that it was adopted by consensus
– a unanimous decision, really. So it was just incredible.
Zoe
I received an email from Gilbert, and the emotions that ran through me at the time -excitement, affirmation, relief.
Read a detailed story here on how the formation of APAI came to be, the selection of the three representatives, the lobbying for IDUAI and the final declaration of 28th September of every year to recognise the role of access to information.
