MAURITIUS
The African Media Barometer (AMB)
The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Southern African Media Project took
the initiative together with the Media Institute for 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 extent 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 “Windhoek
Declaration on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African
Press” (1991) and the “African Charter on Broadcasting” (2001).
By the end of 2008, 23 sub-Saharan countries will 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. In a process
of self-assessment they will meet bi-annually for a two-day-retreat
to go 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.
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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 - Mauritius 2008			

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