1.2.4. International Right to Know Day MISA for the first time joined the rest of the world to celebrate the international right to know day on September 28. MISA Mozambique and Swaziland used the day to launch a review of the state of right to information in the respective countries. 1.3 Lessons Learnt 1.3.1. Weaknesses A research was undertaken in 2006 to assess and review lessons learnt during the three year pilot of MISA’s Right to Information campaign formerly known as the ASK campaign. Except for Angola, all 10 countries in which MISA operates were reviewed. One of the listed major weaknesses of the campaign was the lack of a coherent advocacy strategy, limited resources and inadequate organizational capacity to carry an effective campaign. Furthermore the campaign’s narrow focus of Right to Information being a political Right could not draw a wider support from public and civil society. Right to information was perceived as a concern for the media rather than a social economic issue affecting all citizens. (For further information on the findings a full copy of the review is available in hard copy.) 1.3.2. Opportunities & Threats The findings of the study provided MISA a great opportunity to redesign a new advocacy strategy to include greater public participation by shifting emphasis of the Right to Information to a social-economic right affecting people’s access to other rights like health, education and employment. The biggest threat and challenge to the campaign are lukewarm commitment from policy makers and deep engrained culture of government secrecy. The former points to the lack of belief and reluctance of policy makers to enact right to information legislation, perhaps due to insufficient resources and capacity or most likely the fear that such a law will result in their inherent loss of power. 1.4 Way forward The right to information remains one of MISA’s highest priorities for 2007/2008. The biggest challenge for the campaign is to build public pressure on the call for the right to information. This will only happen when we convince the man on the street that the poor education system, the bad roads, the poor public services, corruption, the shortage of medicine, the poverty surrounding him are due to lack of access to information and that unless the right to access information is legislated, life will remain the same. 8 Annual Report 2006