07 Jul 2014 The Status of Critical Communications Rights

South Africa

The potential of the internet and other information and communications technologies (ICTs) to amplify the voices of marginalized men and women and to enhance people-centred development is indisputable. This project addressed two problems: the absence, in most parts of the world, of a people-centred approach to information society policy and regulation, and the fragmentation of the communications rights movement which had mobilised so intensively to ensure that this approach characterised the outcomes of the UN’s World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). It addressed these problems by engaging organisations and individual activists in Africa, Latin America and South and South East Asia who were involved in the Communications Rights in the Information Society campaign (CRIS), the WSIS, and then-current global communications policy forums, to gather their perceptions on what changes have occurred since 2003 in their countries, regions, or areas of activity. Established in 1990, the Alliance for Progressive Communication (APC) is a non-profit association of member and partner networks around the world committed to making the internet serve the needs of global civil society. APC engages in five interrelated areas: research, advocacy, network building, capacity development and strategic communications and outreach. The goal of the project was to facilitate the development of global and national information society policy and regulation that has social justice, communication rights and people-centred development at its core. The project was multi-country with coordination based in South Africa and Ecuador.

Final Report