Africa’s Right to Information

Abstract

Talking about Africa’s right to information means talking about communication in Africa and the Third World. In Africa, the channels of communication were underdeveloped or inappropriate because of the continent’s colonial past. The resulting lack of information was, among other reasons, an impediment to national development in African states after their independence. Until the 1980s, the principal means of communication were newspapers, books, telephones, radio, and television. However, with the development of modern technology, the proliferation of satellites, the advance in the computer industry, and the advent of the Internet, new forms of communication were added. This article outlines the initiatives and discussions from the 1960s to the 1980s on the relationship between economic development and access to information in the Third World generally and in Africa particularly. The second part deals with new communication technologies, the areas of application in Africa, and their possible impact on Africa’s development.