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More than 20 years after the Windhoek Declaration, African media still face far too many attacks on freedom of the press and the independence of journalists. While some countries – like Ghana – have changed their media laws for the better, in most other countries media law has either not been reformed since colonial times, or reforms have led to equally problematic laws. Recent examples of the latter are the so-called “secrecy bill”, passed by parliament in South Africa as well as the bill on the new Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal in Kenya.

Still, the Windhoek Declaration was not in vain. Nowadays, a strong phalanx of journalists, NGOs and political bodies work in the field of media law reform in Africa:

• the decriminalization of defamation campaign lobbies in many countries in order to get rid of insult laws that endanger the freedom of expression,
• the Pan-African Parliament highlighted the need for media law reform with its Midrand Declaration,
• the Media Legal Defense Initiative supports journalists in court cases.
• Funders like Open Society Foundation support a substantial amount of projects to improve media law in the region

KAS Media Africa believes that this phalanx has huge potential, and wants to contribute to increased and improved cooperation between the different organizations.