Africans overwhelmingly support press freedom and the right to organise, but their lived experience of those freedoms is narrowing, with perceived freedom of speech declining by seven percentage points over the past decade, a major new survey released from Accra has found.
The findings come from Afrobarometer’s latest Pan-Africa Profile, drawn from 50,961 face-to-face interviews conducted across 38 African countries during 2024 and 2025. The report exposes a widening gap between what citizens believe they should be free to do and what they feel they can actually do.
Two thirds of respondents, 65%, said they support the media’s right to publish without government control, while 72% said the media should investigate and report on government mistakes and corruption. Yet only 53% believe the media in their country is actually free to do so. In 20 of the 30 countries surveyed consistently between 2019 and 2025, perceived media freedom declined.
On freedom of speech, 65% of respondents said they feel “somewhat” or “completely” free to express their views. However, in 25 of the 38 surveyed countries, fewer than half of citizens feel “completely” free to speak. Congo-Brazzaville recorded the lowest score at just 7%, followed by Comoros at 8%, Togo at 15%, and Eswatini at 18%.
Citizens expressed stronger confidence around political participation. Some 77% said they feel free to join any political organisation of their choice, and 86% said they can vote for their preferred candidate without pressure. Even so, the report notes that Comoros and Congo-Brazzaville stand out for low scores across nearly all civic freedom indicators.
On freedom of association more broadly, 64% of respondents across the 38 countries affirmed the right to join any organisation regardless of government approval, a figure that has held relatively stable over the past several years. The report notes, however, that the consistent demand for freedoms from citizens contrasts sharply with a pattern of governments enacting laws that restrict online speech, silence critics and weaken independent civic action.
Afrobarometer is a pan-African, nonpartisan survey research network headquartered in Accra that has conducted 10 rounds of surveys across up to 45 countries since 1999.
