Civil society organisations, African Union (AU) institutions and governance practitioners convened in Accra have adopted a formal communiqué calling on African governments to protect civic space, guarantee open access to legal information and integrate citizen data into policymaking across the continent.
The communiqué was adopted on April 24 in Accra under the Data for Governance Alliance (D4GA) and released publicly this week. It draws on Afrobarometer Round 10 survey data from 38 African countries and frames its demands around a governance reality the delegates described as marked by declining democratic satisfaction, weakening public trust and persistently high perceptions of corruption.
The D4GA is a four-year project led by Afrobarometer and four consortium partners: the Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Nairobi, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) and Laws.Africa. The project is funded by the European Union (EU), while the Accra convening itself was financed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The communiqué directs AU member states to ensure the independence and adequate financing of electoral, judicial and accountability institutions, guarantee free public access to legislation, court judgments and official gazettes, and enact and enforce right-to-information laws. It also calls for meaningful youth participation in governance processes and stronger protections for civic space.
On the side of data governance, participants committed to expanding data literacy programmes across AU member states, establishing rapid evidence-to-policy mechanisms, and scaling open legal information systems across the continent. The communiqué also calls for gender-responsive governance data and stronger journalism capacity in multiple African languages.
The alliance’s second phase, running from 2026 to 2030, will deepen institutional engagement between civil society and AU organs and align its work with AU Agenda 2063 and African Continental Free Trade Area priorities. International partners including the EU were asked to provide long-term, sustained financing for governance data infrastructure and to integrate D4GA evidence into AU-EU development frameworks.
CDD-Ghana, based in Accra, focuses on promoting democracy, good governance and economic openness in Ghana and across Africa through research, advocacy and strategic engagement between government and non-state actors.
