The death of Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa in September 2008 created a big gap in the campaign for media freedom particularly the Right to Information in Zambia. It was the late President who in February 2008 committed to ensuring that the Freedom of Information bill, six years after it was developed would go to parliament and consequently passed into law by end of 2008. President Rupiah Banda came into power end of October last year, with all seeming well and to continue in his predecessor’s step of media reform. Six month into office government-media relations are getting fragile by the day with all indicators showing things will get worse.

Resources remain a major constraint for running sustained and consistent campaigns across the regional. The regional campaign can only focus and roll out three or four countries a year will the remaining countries run their own campaigns with feedback to the regional office.

The Future
One of the major campaign for the next two years is the adoption of an African Platform on Access to Information at the Windhoek +20 Conference in 2011. The campaign will continue to focus on small one to one interventions with top policy makers, while scaling down on bigger meetings like workshops. Not only has the former shown more promise, the latter is expensive and will be minimized until we secure more funding.

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