The President demonstrated ‘another will’ by sending a representative at the conference in person of her Minister of State for Development and Reconstruction. In spite of the assurances from the President and other officials, our law is running to two years now in committee room. The Nigerian experience is an excellent lesson for Liberia. Indeed, a classic lack of political will.Ī key finding of the conference is that “politicians may resist transparency because they fear that information will be used by their opponents, will increase risks to their personal interests and may expose government’s failure.” ![]() The Liberia must have however taken consolation in the fact that an FOI is pending before the legislature as opposed to the very many African countries that are yet to initiate the process.īut if consolation is any to go bye, than Nigeria can boost of having the oldest law pending before the legislature – their law has been waiting for more than twenty years now. Liberia seems to have been celebrated at the conference because of its success story in establishing a transparency regime in the extractive industry, but the country, like many others is wanting in getting an FOI legislation passed. Liberia was represented at the conference by seven delegates including three from government (Ministries of State and Information and the Legislature) two from civil society and two from the media. This sad state of ATI on the continent in this information age, explains why 130 participants convened from 7 – 9 February in Accra to launch a new kind of revolution to remove the dark cloud of secrecy over the continent to usher in an access to information regime. As one speaker observed, “legitimate governments will not withhold information from their people since they derive legitimacy from the people.” More than half a century after the independence struggle in Africa, the continent stand guilty of abusing one of the fundamental rights of an entire generation - the right to know. “I wanted to be sure that the people knew what was happening in Washington ,” the former President asserted. His message was appealing to the voters because America had “suffered from the lack of information and secrecy that was associated with the Vienna war.” America sustained severe loses that led to their eventual withdrawal from Vienna. Speaking at the opening of the conference, President Carter said he won the American elections because he made ATI a part of his campaign message to the American people. The Carter Center hosted the conference in partnership with the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and ATI in Africa, the Media Foundation for West Africa and the Open Democracy Advice Center. So than, if we Africans hold that Africa is locked in the “culture of secrecy,” doesn’t it make plenty of sense that Africa is really a dark continent?įormer US President, Jimmy Carter, whose organization, the Carter Center convened the regional conference said access to information is key factor in reducing corruption. ![]() Many experts, including Africans at the conference were convinced that there stay remains a deeply rooted “failure of political leadership, culture of secrecy, low public awareness and institutional barriers “ in Africa that is reasons why Africa is lagging far behind the rest of the world in establishing access to information legislation. This question arguably was a rude awakening to the reality of the African continent’s resistance to the demand for greater openness and good governance.Īdmittedly, Africans and their leaders have made some gains since the end of colonial rule in redeeming the characterization of Africa as a “dark continent.” But those achievements, however small, are being overwhelmed by negative tendencies that stand in the face of the development of Africa. There was simply a yes chorus and as it reverberated across the floor, than the critical question that perhaps underpinned the necessity of regional conference followed - “If transparency matters, why is Africa lagging behind?” ![]() The responses to the above question was a resounding yes as African government representatives, civil society leaders, media practitioners, academia and other stakeholders assembled in the Ghanaian Capital, Accra for three days to advance the right to Access to information, ATI.īeyond the yes answers, the conference participants drawn from twenty countries agreed that ATI is a fundamental human right that can lead to development, poverty reduction, peace and stability. The current website for the Public Agenda News, now a blog site on Wordpress, can be found at: In 2014 this was the website for Public Agenda News.Ĭontent is from the site's 2014 archived pages offering a brief glimpse at the type of news this site provided its readership.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |