About

Accra, Ghana
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) is an independent non-governmental organisation created to ensure the practical realisation of human rights in the countries of the Commonwealth. We push for an adherence to the Commonwealth's Harare Principles and the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CHRI was established in 1987 after several Commonwealth countries voiced their concern about a lack of focus on Human rights within the Commonwealth organization. CHRI currently has three offices; in Delhi, London and Accra. The Africa office was opened in Accra in 2001 and is at the forefront of the fight to uphold basic human freedoms in the region. We work in three main areas of human rights: Human Rights Advocacy; Access to justice and The Right to Information.

Wednesday, 1 June 2011

Nigeria passes the Freedom of Information Act

Great news! Yesterday Nigeria passed the Freedom of Information Act!

Ironically this was just one day after Chris Lane had commented, in his excellent article on lessons learnt from the UK’s Freedom of Information Act, that Nigeria was “digging in its heels”!!!

Nigeria joins the small list of other countries in Africa in that have passed freedom of information (FOI) legislation. Liberia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Uganda all have FOI bills. Freedominfo.org provide a good insight into the situation in Africa.

Under Nigeria’ new legislation, whistleblowers who report malpractice by their employers will be protected from reprisals whilst all institutions spending public funds will have to be provide information about their operations and expenditure.

 For further on the Nigerian act have a look at allafrica.com. Click here

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