The African Alliance on Access to Data (A4DD) have formally presented the fourth version of the draft African Guidelines on Access to Data to the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa, Commissioner Ourveena Geereesha Topsy Sonoo.
The document was presented to Commissioner Topsy-Sonoo, who is a member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) and its mandate holder for freedom of expression and access to information, on the sidelines of the International Conference on Digital Platform Governance, held under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Pretoria, South Africa, on February 12 and 13, 2026.
The draft Guidelines is the product of a series of extensive consultations with diverse stakeholders around the continent, undertaken by the Alliance under the leadership of the Special Rapporteur pursuant to the ACHPR Resolution 620, which was adopted in November 2024 by the Commission at its 81st Ordinary Session held in Banjul, The Gambia.
The Resolution, titled: “Promoting and Harnessing Data Access for Human Rights and Sustainable Development in the Digital Age”, mandated the Special Rapporteur to “examine and develop appropriate normative standards to guide data collection, deployment and access issues concerning data; [and] to support efforts that promote and protect access to data across Africa.”
The draft Guidelines outline, among other things, relevant principles and how the Resolution can be implemented by African governments and state agencies, which are duty-bearers in terms of the right to information, and by extension, the right to data.
Receiving the document, the Special Rapporteur thanked the Alliance for the extensive work over 15 months to develop the draft, saying she would use the draft to produce her own version of the instrument, which she would be presenting to the Commission at its next ordinary session beginning later in the month.
Prior to handing over the document to the Special Rapporteur, the Alliance convened a discussion titled “Governance for advancing access to data” at the UNESCO Conference on Digital Platform Governance in Pretoria.
The meeting explored issues in the draft Guidelines, including the roles foreseen for Information and Data protection regulators, research bodies, and national statistics agencies.
The Special Rapporteur told the meeting that the ACHPR will consult on the draft Guidelines, and consider adopting a version later in the year, adding that State Parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights would be further engaged on how they can foresee implementation and operationalisation.
Insights were offered during the discussion in relation to the Guidelines on issues such as Data is power, Data’s backbone is mathematics, and Data is part of digital public infrastructure which should be open to all.
Dr Tshiamo Motshegwa, Executive Director of the African Open Science Platform, founded by the South African National Research Foundation, elaborated on the details of opening up data for research, and opening up research data, as outlined in the Guidelines. He proposed that there should be companion guidelines to specifically apply the ACHPR Guidelines in the research sector.
The Deputy Director-General for Statistical Support and Informatics at the South African National Statistics Commission, Mr. Ashwell Jennecker, assessed how the Guidelines could add impetus to the work of the agency in its contribution to unifying State data holdings and services.
Ms Zoe Titus, Executive Director of the NMT Media Foundation in Namibia and a member of the Alliance, asked for his views on a debate in South Africa where private sector actors, without revealing their data, presented very different population and employment statistics to those of the Statistics Commission.
Responding, Mr. Jennecker highlighted the importance of meta-data about how specific conclusions were generated, and the value of infusing privately-held data into the work of the Statistics Commission in the spirit of the Guidelines.
Mr. Mukelani Dimba, Executive for Education and Communication at the office of the Information Regulator of South Africa, noted that the Guidelines would help encourage sub-regional co-operation to enforce national jurisdictions when platforms refused legal requests for information and data.
He also flagged how important it is to not just increase the “supply side” of data through the Guidelines, but also to build awareness and capacity on the “demand” side.
Other participants in the discussion included Alliance members such as Ms Hlengiwe Dube, Programm Manager for Expression, Information and Digital Rights at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria in South Africa; Mr. Gilbert Sendugwa, Executive Director of the Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) in Kampala, Uganda, and Mr. Alfred Bulakali, Regional Director for West Africa at Article 19, in Dakar, Senegal, all of whom stressed the importance of data governance in the ecosystem of civil society actors.
Ms Maria Paz Canales, a Chilean lawyer and Head of Policy and Advocacy at the London-based Global Partners Digital, recalled that holdings in both the public and private sectors largely originated from data subjects, both individuals and communities. This, she said, makes the case for public interest data access and sharing.
