The African Observatory aims to evaluate the pandemic’s impacts on journalism. It also documents state censorship and deliberate disinformation, and their impact on the right to reliable news and information, and makes recommendations on how to defend journalism. This observatory will monitor and record individual, legal, and corporate cases and violations of freedom of expression and information due to the COVID-19 in Africa, combining monitoring of violence against journalists with a review of emergency legislation and government actions taken.

The observatory will inform advocacy efforts at national, regional and multilateral levels.