and accountability

Archives and access to information: transparency and accountability

The South Africa’s national archival system was established as part of the new government that came into place in 1994. It has five key objectives:

• Turning archives into an accessible public resource that supports the exercise of human rights; • Using archives to support post-apartheid programmes of redress and reparation, including the Truth and Reconciliation

Commission (TRC), land restitution, and special pensions; • Taking archives to the people through participatory public programmes; • Actively documenting voices and experiences of those who had been left out of colonial and apartheid archives; • Using public archives to ensure that government record-keeping supports efficient, accountable, and transparent administration.

“Access to information is a right which is protected by our Constitution. There is a whole piece of legislation dedicated to helping ordinary people access information from the state and the private sector: this legislation is called the Promotion of Access to Information Act – or PAIA.”