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Defending Digital Rights in the Democratic Repub...
By Morgan Frost While the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the fourth largest country in Africa in terms of population, it has one of the lowest levels of internet accessibility across the continent. Weak democratic governance and the prevalence of several armed groups has left the DRC to f... |
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In the run-up to elections in Zimbabwe, social m...
By Alex T. Magaisa On July 30th, Zimbabweans will go to the polls to elect a president, parliamentarians, and local authorities. The forthcoming election is remarkable for at least two reasons. First, it will be the first time since independence that ousted leader Robert Mugabe will not be a candid... |
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Kenya’s Media Shutdown and the Political F...
By James Smart Dictatorship, authoritarianism, and despotism are the very big words that have been used to describe the state of affairs in Kenya these days after three private television stations were forced off the air by the government. They are the labels being used to expound upon long-standing... |
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Voice without Accountability
By Nana Ama Agyemang Asante Among the things that have cemented Ghana’s place on the international list of effective developing democracies is the relatively drama-free transfer of power—a feat accomplished seven times in 24 years through free and fair elections, and sometimes through other cons... |
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Promoting Inclusive information in Mozambique: T...
By Jessica Sadler The founder of TV Surdo, a video news outlet run by deaf and hard of hearing (HOH) individuals Maputo, Mozambique, has been deaf himself since the age of five. Because the schools in Mozambique are not equipped to accommodate children with different abilities, Sousa Camanguira stru... |
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China’s multi-billion dollar telecommunication...
By Andrea Vega Yudico The Chinese government is making significant investments in telecommunications infrastructure across Africa. According to the Tracking Chinese Development Finance project at AidData, between 2000 and 2013, 38 African countries received $1.7 billion in combined Chinese investm... |
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Building Coalitions for Media Reform in Africa
“Attacks on the media are the starting point of aggression, and a clear indicator that lawyers will be next.” These were the ominous words of Henry Maina, Director of Article 19 in East Africa, at a session of the annual Pan-African Lawyers Union (PALU) conference in Durban, South Africa that ex... |
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Cameroon’s Internet Shutdown Cannot Stifle Dis...
By Elie Smith The Internet has been turned off for more than 80 days in parts of the West African country of Cameroon. And while this has garnered international condemnation, what most onlookers have not yet fully grasped is how the shutdown is related to long-simmering regional tensions within the ... |
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The Kenyan media business should panic. Kenyan j...
By James Smart When President Barack Obama famously visited the country of his father’s birth just months before leaving office, he congratulated the Kenyan press for its well-known “feisty journalism.” If his speechwriters had been more attuned to current events, they might have been more cir... |
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Diversifying Internet Governance with a Focus on...
Seeing as the Internet is now, in many countries, the primary conduit for the circulation of independent journalism, how it is governed will impact both media development and press freedom. Will global Internet policies foster the free circulation of information? Will they be structured in ways that... |