Cape Town Declaration

Abstract

Ministers and country representatives from Angola, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote D’Ivoire, Lesotho, Guinea, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, South Sudan and Swaziland met to discuss the status of libraries and implementation of access to information agenda at a meeting on 14 August 2015 in Cape Town, South Africa—just ahead of IFLA WLIC 2015. IFLA President Sinikka Sipilä, African Library Associations & Institutions (AfLIA) President and national librarians were also present. The group deliberated on the status of libraries on the African continent and the progress required to: meet the global sustainable development goals and also to "provide the necessary resources for the development of African libraries to respond to modern-day challenges by offering access to emerging technologies; encourage the use of ebooks and virtual libraries to facilitate cultural and scientific exchange and encourage a culture of reading on the continent; promote library policies on access to information as part of a universal human rights approach; encourage the collection and preservation of stories from indigenous African communities; and require the African ministers responsible for arts and culture, libraries, and access to information to meet regularly."