African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms Engage Platform

The African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms Engage platform is designed to be a key tool to promote internet rights in Africa. Specifically it seeks to promote the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms, and to help shape approaches to internet policy-making and governance across the continent.

As explained on the platform, “The African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms is a Pan-African initiative to promote human rights standards and principles of openness in internet policy formulation and implementation on the continent. The Declaration is intended to elaborate on the principles which are necessary to uphold human and people’s rights on the internet, and to cultivate an Internet environment that can best meet Africa’s social and economic development needs and goals.” The Declaration was developed to broaden the view of civil and political rights to include internet-related issues that are important for developing countries. It covers issues related to the use of the internet as a vital platform for expression and participation, particularly for marginalised communities.
 
It is intended for human rights defenders, journalists, policy makers, and anyone interested in internet rights, particularly on the African continent. They can learn more about the Declaration and how to engage with it by accessing supplementary content related to each principle in the Declaration.  The content includes reports, articles, case studies, and organisational and personal stories. Visitors can also add their research, publications, events, videos, and images as they relate to each principle in the Declaration.

The initiative was launched by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) as part of APC’s project ‘Building feminist cross-movement collaboration and action on internet and human rights in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean’.  APC, a member of the Declaration Secretariat, plays a lead role in building awareness and support for the Declaration, and is working to achieve this through two goals: 1) to make African rights groups and media practitioners aware of how important protecting rights on the internet is to their work and to achieve greater respect for human rights on the internet at all levels; 2) to achieve this particularly among governments, parliamentarians, and intergovernmental bodies by holding them accountable to upholding rights, to which they have already agreed.

This platform is a subdomain of the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms website, which offers information on the history and background of the Declaration and its principles. Both websites are tools to promote the Declaration to be widely endorsed by all those with a stake in the internet in Africa.

The platform offers information, content, and discussion opportunities for the following principles:

1. Openness
2. Internet Access and Affordability
3. Freedom of Expression
4. Right to Information
5. Freedom of Assembly and Association and the Internet
6. Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
7. Right to Development Access to Knowledge
8. Privacy and Personal Data Protection
9. Security, Stability, and Resilience of the Internet
10. Marginalised Groups and Groups at Risk
11. Right to Due Process
12. Democratic Multistakeholder Internet Governance
13. Gender Equality