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.

Summary of Activities, 2000 – 2006

Conferences Convened                    

• 2000: Algiers                          

• 2001: Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone

• 2004: DRC                                         

• 2005: Egypt, Nigeria, Tanzania

• 2006: Angola; France (Global Roundtable Convened by CODESRIA in the context of a Global forum for Human Rights held in Nantes, France)

In February 2007, CODESRIA organised a major conference on  Academic freedom and university autonomy in post conflict Sudan

Publications Issued by the Programme:

• Women in Academia: Gender and Academic Freedom in Africa (CODESRIA Books), 2000

• Academic Freedom in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) (CODESRIA Books), 2005

• Academic Freedom: Global Challenges, African Experiences, 2006

• Special Issue of the Journal of Higher Education in Africa