The promotion and
defense of academic freedom and the autonomy of research
institutions is a central element of CODESRIA’s mandate as
stipulated in the Charter of the Council. Although the CODESRIA
Academic Freedom Programme, such as it is known presently, was
only formally launched in June 1994, the Council has been
involved in the promotion of academic freedom since it was
founded in 1973, with some of the earliest beneficiaries from
the initiative being the first wave of exiled academics from the
erstwhile settler colonies of Southern Africa. In November 1990,
preparatory to the formal launching of the Programme, the
Council convened a major pan-African conference on academic
freedom which, among other things resulted in the adoption of
the Kampala Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social
Responsibility. The Declaration recommended, inter alia,
the creation of a mechanism for monitoring and promoting
academic freedom in Africa. In addition to the research
component of the programme, a small fund for assisting scholars
in distress was also set up by CODESRIA. Furthermore, the
Council intervened in various ways to rescue or assist scholars
faced with various threats, ranging from authoritarian
governments, intolerant university administrators and unruly
student cults to situations of civil war and religious zealotry
that involved a direct targeting of academics.
The Kampala
Declaration was adopted at a time when new, popular pressures
for democratization were sweeping through Africa. But the harsh
socio-economic conditions that continued to persist across
Africa meant that many citizens could not reap the full benefits
of the political reforms they had struggled for. As political
authoritarianism was reinvented, academic freedom continued to
be restricted by governments buffeted with persistent popular
demands for a deepening of democracy, the enthronement of human
rights, and the alleviation of the harsh socio-economic
conditions that remained the lot of the working poor. It was a
mark of the authoritarian reflexes of most governments that they
hardly lost any opportunity to seek to violate the freedom of
research, restrict the autonomy of universities, and dictate the
structure and content of the teaching curriculum. The
problems experienced by researchers in seeking to exercise their
academic freedom in full were compounded by the imposition of
structural adjustment programmes and the downgrading of higher
education and research in the hierarchy of government
priorities. Within this environment, the CODESRIA Academic
Freedom Programme inevitably expanded to become a major area of
work encompassing research, research dissemination,
sensitization, advocacy, dialogues and modest support to
scholars – and other intellectuals – under attack.
In the period
from the year 2000 to now (2007), CODESRIA, through the Academic
Freedom Programme, has organized several conferences and
dialogues in different countries. These include the one on
academic freedom in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
another one on Academic Freedom, Social Responsibility and
the State of Academic Freedom in Tanzania, co-organised with
the University of Dar es Salaam Academic Staff Assembly (UDASA),
a further one on Reforming the Higher Education System in
Nigeria, co-organised with the Academic Staff Union of
Nigerian Universities (ASUU), and a fourth one in Egypt on
Intellectual and Academic Freedom in Africa and the Arab World,
co-organised with the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education Research
and Knowledge, the Swedish Institute in Alexandria and the Arab
and African Research Centre in Cairo. Each one of these
conferences resulted in at least a book manuscript, with some of
them already out in print. Organizing these activities with
local institutions and research communities was a conscious
decision aimed at solidarising with and strengthening the local
communities of scholars in their daily work for the protection
of their freedoms.
In February 2007, CODESRIA organised a major
conference on Academic
freedom and university autonomy in post conflict Sudan
Conferences
- Morocco, 2008
- Sudan, 2007
- Guinea, 2007
- Call for proposals
- Programme
- 2006: Angola; France (Global
Roundtable Convened by CODESRIA in the context of a Global forum for Human
Rights held in Nantes, France)
- Call
for proposals
- Conference
Report
- 2005:
Egypt, Nigeria, Tanzania
- 2004:
DRC
- 2001: Côte
d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone
- 2000:
Algiers
Publications
Issued by the Programme:
