Cameroon The African Media Barometer (AMB) The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Southern African Media Project took the initiative together with the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) to start the African Media Barometer in April 2005, a self assessment exercise done by Africans themselves according to homegrown criteria. The project is the first in-depth and comprehensive description and measurement system for national media environments on the African continent. The benchmarks are to a large extend taken from the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR)1 “Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa”, adopted in 2002. This declaration was largely inspired by the groundbreaking conferences in Windhoek/Namibia on the “Independence of the Media” (1992) and the “African Charter on Broadcasting” (2001). By the end of 2007, 26 sub-Saharan countries have been covered by the AMB. In 2007 those countries which started the exercise in 2005 were revisited providing for the first time comparable data to measure developments in a country over a two-year period. Methodology: A panel of experts is formed in each country, including representatives of media and civil society at large in equal numbers. They are serving as panel members in their personal capacities, not as representatives of their respective organisations. The panel should consist of not more than ten members. They will meet bi-annually for two days retreats to go in a self-assessment process through the indicators in a qualitative discussion and determine (quantitative) scores for each indicator. The meetings will be chaired by an FES consultant to ensure comparable results. The resulting reports are made public. 1 The ACHPR is the authoritative organ of the African Union (AU) mandated to interpret the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights African Media Barometer - Cameroon 2008 1