Cape Town Declaration (IFLA WLIC 2015)

Cape Town, South Africa—14 August 2015

Ministers and country representatives from Angola, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote D’Ivoire, Lesotho, Guinea, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, South Sudan and Swaziland met to discuss the status of libraries and implementation of access to information agenda at a meeting on 14 August 2015 in Cape Town, South Africa—just ahead of IFLA WLIC 2015.

IFLA President Sinikka Sipilä, African Library Associations & Institutions (AfLIA) President and national librarians were also present.

The group deliberated on the status of libraries on the African continent and the progress required to meet the global sustainable development goals.  

The resulting document is the Cape Town Declaration.

We thereby commit to: 

• Provide the necessary resources for the development of African libraries to respond to modern day challenges and provide access to emerging technologies; 
• Support the establishment of a Pan African library organisation to provide a platform for networking and resource mobilisation; 
• Encourage the establishment of institutional partnerships between libraries in the continent for exchange of knowledge and experiences; 
• Fast-track implementation of continental innovative strategies to improve ICT and knowledge management;
•  Encourage the implementation of fair and balanced copyright laws to facilitate access to information for all; Fast-track the implementation of the outcomes of Library Summits held in 2011, 2013 and 2015 respectively; 
• Support the work of the African Library and Information Association and Institutions (AFLIA); and National Libraries, National Library Services, National Library Associations and Councils; Encourage the use of e-books and virtual libraries more effectively to facilitate cultural and scientific exchange and encourage a culture of reading in the continent; 
• Promote library policies on access to information as part of a universal human rights approach as well as rights of people to knowledge; 
• Encourage the development and promotion of local content in African libraries as part of the promotion of African Renaissance and Pan Africanism;
• Encourage the sharing of skills, collection and preservation of African stories from our own communities; Commit that the African Ministers responsible for arts and culture, libraries and access to information will meet regularly; Adopted In Cape Town, Republic of South Africa on 14 August 2015.

Read the full text: [PDF–English]

Source: http://www.ifla.org/node/9767