MRA hosts Africa regional conference on FOI
The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) this week held a two-day Africa Regional Conference on the implementation of the Freedom of Information law.
The event which took place on Tuesday March 18 and 19, 2014 in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory focused on designing strategies for enhancing the effectiveness of access to information laws on the continent.
Over a hundred Freedom of Information stakeholders, including civil society organizations, media stakeholders, public institutions and FOI oversight bodies, from across Africa were represented at the two-day meeting. It provided a platform for an assessment of the level of implementation of the Freedom of Information laws in the different participating countries who already had access to information legislation.
Participants equally identified and discussed the challenges of implementation in various countries and discuss ways in which the challenges have been addressed: this will give the Nigerian participants an opportunity to learn from these experiences. The Conference, whose theme is “Advancing Freedom of Information Implementation on the African Continent”, is expected to be declared open by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), while Major-General Chris Olukolade, Nigeria’s Director of Defence Information, will deliver the keynote address.
The Conference was supported by the Democratic Governance for Development (DGD II) Project, a joint donor-funded project managed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in support of deepening democracy in Nigeria. It is funded with contributions from the European Union (EU), the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and UNDP.
The broad objective of the Conference was to bring together key stakeholders from the West African sub-region and other parts of Africa to share experiences in implementing their FOI laws; collectively identify the challenges confronting the effective implementation of Freedom of Information laws in their countries and find ways of addressing or mitigating them. Other objectives include, bringing together oversight bodies and authorities with responsibility for Freedom of Information laws and provide them with a platform to support and assist each other in the performance of their oversight functions; and to ensure that civil society actors, including media stakeholders on Freedom of Information issues from across West Africa and other parts of the continent work together on the effective implementation of FOI laws across the region.
The Conference came to an end, with a broad strategy document incorporating the roles and approaches of various stakeholders in the implementation of FOI Laws.