In perhaps its most limited sense, access to information has been codified as a legitimate aspiration for citizens in any (open) society. In the broadest sense, access to information has been defined as the freedom or ability to identify, obtain and make use of data or information effectively. įrom the foregoing, it is evident that the role of access to information is pivotal to the attainment of true democracy-not just for empires of the past but fledgling and mature democracies today. * Representative government that is anchored on fundamental rights, checks on the exercise of power, impartial administration and participatory engagement. * Respecting difference and nurturing social renewal without conflict and, * Resolution of disagreement through peaceful dialogue * Equality of all persons before and under the law Slightly under three hundred years of the democratic experiment, the democratic ideal has been characterized as one that aspires towards attaining the following things: Even more recent watershed moments like the Industrial Revolution and more to the democratic ideal, the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century. Whether expressed in writing, passed to new generations by oral tradition or stored by other means, information was central to the Aztecs, the Egyptians, Greeks, Malians, and successive Chinese dynasties, to mention a few. Swap the parameters in drupal_get_feeds() (line 394 of /home1/africademocracyf/public_html/includes/common.inc).Īll civilizations, eras and epochs known to mankind have had information (synonymous with knowledge, communication and learning) at the heart of their existence. Deprecated function: implode(): Passing glue string after array is deprecated.Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6595 of /home1/africademocracyf/public_html/includes/common.inc).This message will be suppressed on further calls in menu_set_active_trail() (line 2405 of /home1/africademocracyf/public_html/includes/menu.inc). Deprecated function: The each() function is deprecated.Deprecated function: Array and string offset access syntax with curly braces is deprecated in include_once() (line 3478 of /home1/africademocracyf/public_html/includes/bootstrap.inc).