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Building Free Access to Law in Africa: Some Examples of Successful Projects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2014

Ruth Ward
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Abstract

Ruth Ward explains how open access to legislation in Africa is a much more recent development than in the developed world. Several recently launched projects are well underway, and are contributing towards promoting justice and the rule of law in Africa. Access to legislation facilitates great transparency and access to the law for the promotion of trade and investment; and supports the resulting economic development on the continent. Several different approaches to establishing projects which deliver reliable consolidated access to legislation are illustrated, and show that successful projects can be established and maintained on modest budgets by very small teams.

Keywords

free legal informationopen accessAfrica
Type
Selection of Papers from the BIALL Conference 2014
Information
Legal Information Management , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 290 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians 

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References

Footnotes

1 Legal Week, 31 Jan 2014, <http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/analysis/2325785/the-compass-points-south-how-do-in-house-legal-teams-in-africa-rate-their-external-advisers> accessed on 10 September 2014.

2 World Bank Data - Sub-Saharan Africa (developing only) <http://data.worldbank.org/region/SSA> accessed 10 September 2014

3 Jidenma, Nmachi, ‘How Africa's mobile revolution is disrupting the continent’ (CNN, 24 January 2014.) <http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/24/business/davos-africa-mobile-explosion/> accessed 10 September 2014

4 World Bank, Africa – Home <http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr> accessed 10 September 2014.

5 EY, ‘Foreign direct investment in Sub-Saharan Africa on the rise’ (Johannesburg and London, 15 May 2014) <http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Newsroom/News-releases/News-foreign-direct-investment-in-sub-saharan-africa-on-the-rise> accessed 10 September 2014

6 The compass points South – how do in house legal teams rate their external advisers' (Legal Week, 31 Jan 2014) <http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/analysis/2325785/the-compass-points-south-how-do-in-house-legal-teams-in-africa-rate-their-external-advisers> accessed on 10 September 2014.

7 World Bank, Ease of doing business index, table <http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.BUS.EASE.XQ> accessed 10 September 2014

8 Thorpe, Caroline, ‘A continent on the rise – why top law firms are eager to tap into the African market (Legal Week, 22 November 2013) <http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/analysis/2307582/a-continent-on-the-rise-why-africa-remains-popular-among-global-law-firms> accessed on 10 September 2014.

9 see fatlm.org

10 Conclusions and recommendations of the Joint conference of the European Commission – Hague conference on access to foreign law in civil and commercial matters, 15–17 February 2012, Brussels, Belgium, <http://www.hcch.net/upload/wop/gap2012info10en.pdf> accessed 10 September 2014

11 Open Knowledge <okfn.org> accessed 10 September 2014

12 Conclusions and recommendations of the Joint conference of the European Commission – Hague conference on access to foreign law in civil and commercial matters, 15–17 February 2012, Brussels, Belgium, <http://www.hcch.net/upload/wop/gap2012info10en.pdf>- accessed 10 September 2014

13 <www.gov.za>

14 <http://www.africanlii.org/>

15 <http://www.seylii.org/> accessed 10 September 2014

16 Akoma Ntoso in detail – What is it? <http://www.akomantoso.org/akoma-ntoso-in-detail/what-is-it> accessed 10 September 2014

17 World eParliament Report 2012, <http://www.ictparliament.org/WePReport2012.html> accessed 10 September 2014

18 Parlmirani, Monica: Akoma Ntoso implementations, Legal Informatics blog, posted 27 January 2014, http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/palmirani-akoma-ntoso-implementations/ accessed 10 September 2014

19 http://kenyalaw.org/kl/index.php?id=115 Accessed 10 September 2014

20 http://www.africanlawlibrary.net

21 Mafukidze, Tererai, Sustainability models for LIIs in Africa http://www.africanlawlibrary.net/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4i4RTO_M0g Accessed 10 September 2014

22 Smith, David: Internet use on mobile phones in Africa predicted to increase 20-fold. The Guardian, 5 June 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/05/internet-use-mobile-phones-africa-predicted-increase-20-fold accessed 10 September 2014