Between 2007 and 2010, the African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) project probed the relationship between national copyright environments and access to learning materials in African countries. The project looked at this relationship within an access to knowledge (A2K) framework — a framework which regards the protection/promotion of user access as one of the central objectives of copyright law.
This project, supported by Canada’s IDRC and South Africa’s Shuttleworth Foundation, and managed by the LINK Centre at the Wits University Graduate School of Public & Development Management (P&DM) in Johannesburg, had research nodes in eight African countries: Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda.
On this page, the key research output of the ACA2K project is archived.
ACA2K Book
Access to Knowledge in Africa: The Role of Copyright, a book outlining the ACA2K research results is published by UCT Press under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 South Africa license. Here are downloadable PDFs of individual chapters and the entire book:
Acknowledgments, Contributors, Foreword
Chapter 1: Intro | Chapter 2: Egypt | Chapter 3: Ghana | Chapter 4: Kenya
Chapter 5: Morocco | Chapter 6: Mozambique | Chapter 7: Senegal
Chapter 8: South Africa | Chapter 9: Uganda
Chapter 10: Summary & Conclusions | Afterword
Research Reports
Country Reports
Each ACA2K country research team has prepared a Country Report outlining the findings of the doctrinal review and impact assessment interviews.
Egypt | Ghana | Kenya | Morocco | Mozambique | Senegal | South Africa | Uganda
Executive Policy Briefs
As well as preparing a Country Report based on research results, each ACA2K country team has prepared an Executive Policy Brief to highlight key findings and the legal, regulatory and policy recommendations that emerge from these findings.
Egypt | Ghana | Kenya | Morocco | Mozambique | Senegal | South Africa | Uganda
Comparative Review
The project has also generated a Comparative Review report looking at research findings across the ACA2K study countries and making recommendations for possible ways forward.
Comparative Review of Research Findings
Research Methodology
The ACA2K in-country research methodology had two main components: a doctrinal review and impact assessment interviews. By combining the findings from these two research components, supplemented by a secondary literature review, ACA2K researchers have been able to generate a picture of each study country’s ‘copyright environment’ (the interaction between laws and practice).
Methodology Guide