The Righ2Know Campaign held its 8th National Summit at Stay City in Johannesburg from 9 – 11 March 2018. See FULL REPORT. 

Delegates considered the 2017 Organisational Report and assessed the progress made since the 7th National Summit in March 2017 as well as the challenges and opportunities facing the campaign in the coming year.

Delegates then developed and adopted a set of Resolutions that will serve as the Campaign’s strategic Framework for the coming year (See Section 2 & 3 below).

The Campaign has emerged from the 2018 National Summit united, strengthened, and recommitted to defending and opening democratic spaces for people to access information, express themselves and organise to hold power to account and realise the R2K vision of a democracy “that is open, accountable, participatory and responsive; able to deliver the social, economic and environmental justice we need. On this foundation a society and an international community can be built in which we all live free from want, in equality and in dignity.”

 

2. Resolutions on Campaigns

Our right to know faces challenges on many fronts and while we are resolved continue to wage a multifaceted campaign, we realise the need for greater focus to achieve more impact. We therefore adopt both primary and secondary resolutions with the intention of dedicating more energy and resources to realising our primary goals for 2018/9.

2.1. Securitisation & Surveillance

1. Continue to mobilise against RICA and other surveillance laws, including demanding an end to SIM card registration.
2. Demand that the Secrecy Bill must be scrapped.
3. Campaign against state surveillance of protesters.
4. Demand accountability from watchdog bodies like the Information Regulator and Inspector General of Intelligence.
5. Continue popular education on surveillance and digital security.
6. Produce short leaflets on other forms of surveillance such as biometric databases and CCTV

 

Secondary:

1. Call for a complete reform of the security agencies and an end to the securocratic project.
2. Pressure telecoms companies like MTN, Vodacom, Cell C and Telkom to push back against surveillance and protect their users’ right to privacy.
3. Engage regulatory bodies on the misuse of personal information by private companies and political parties.
4. Produce popular education on how to take action when your personal information has been misused.

 

2.2 Right to Protest

1. On popular education, we resolve to expand our popular education on the Right to Protest beyond our current urban nodes by:
   1. By continuing to strengthen our role within the R2P project to align our popular education efforts; and
   2. By building relationships with other structures (in our provinces and nationally) to increase the footprint of our popular education
   3. We resolve to continue to popularise and promote the use of the R2P hotline
      
2. On advocacy, we resolve to:
   1. Conduct further research on possible amendments to the RGA and an advocacy campaign in that regard.
   2. Contribute research on the impact of municipal bylaws on the right to protest in R2K networks.
   3. Strengthen relationship with current partner organizations engaged in work around the right to protest (notably the SJC)
   4. Campaign against brutality by police and private security in protests

 

1. On mobilisation, we resolve to:
   1. Establish Right to Protest Response teams in each province with a mandate to:
      1. Support local structures and others with Section 4 meetings;
      2. Assist with referral to the R2P network for legal and other assistance arising from protest actions;
   2. Build our capacity to offer support on marshalling protest action and observing protest actions especially to highlight abuses by security services.

 

2.3 Access to Information

1. Strengthening our support for local community struggles related to participatory democracy, including trainings for our comrades on using access to information tools. We will continue to mobilise against non-compliance to PAIA requests.
2. Campaign to protect our personal information and right to privacy, including challenge the non-performance of the information regulator and ensuing the personal information of social grant recipients is not abused.
3. Strengthen our participation in the Unpaid Benefits Campaign (UBC) to ensure transparency and hold the financial sector accountable for money stolen from workers, including through continued participation in the Rosemary Hunter case against the Financial Services Board.
4. Undertake a focussed campaign to demand open meetings and participatory processes to advance local government accountability. This may include litigation.
5. Bring the processing of the land audit to finality and use the information to inform how we think about the land issue in the country and how we support those organisations fighting for land.

 

Secondary:

1. Strengthen our relationship and work with coalitions and allied organisations.
2. Continue to campaign with My Vote Counts for transparency in political party funding in the run-up to the 2019 elections.
3. Continue to expose the continuities between Apartheid and post-Apartheid power and corruption including promoting the People’s Tribunal on Economic Crimes, challenging the Seriti Commission outcomes and supporting the SAHA case against the Reserve Bank.
4. Continue vigilance against a secret Nuclear Deal.

2.4 Right to Communicate

2.4.1 Media Freedom & Diversity

1. Continue to defend media freedom and oppose laws that seek to limit freedom of expression including the Cybercrimes Bill, Film and Publications Amendment Bill, and Hate Speech Bill.
2. Commission research into the democratisation of the media and telecoms sector using the State Capture Commission and other spaces to expose elite domination and corruption. We strive for a just migration to Digital TV, an end to STB corruption, ICASA’s broadcast licence allocation that advances media diversity, and an end to the abuse of government advertising allocations.
3. Launch the ‘love your community media campaign’ to mobilize communities to engage and transform their local community media and campaign for public funding. Each province should support an ongoing relationship between community organisations and their radio station in at least one community.
4. To confront patriarchal practices and forms within the media (media representation, freedom of expression issues, and supporting women in the media).

 

2.4.2 Access to Telecoms

1. Campaign for Free Basic Data Now! That is a 2MB/s uncapped connection on mobile networks as the next step to realizing free universal internet for all.
2. Engage municipalities to expand access to free high speed internet in public and communal spaces.

 

Secondary:

1. Continue to promote Zenzeleni as a model of the ‘internet from below’. Campaign for access to unused GSM spectrum and ensure at least one R2K community launches a Zenzeleni network.
2. Campaign to ensure that the proposed wholesale open access network (WOAN) is free of corruption, nonprofit, publicly accountable, has a mandate to advance the right to communicate, and includes user advocates in the board.

3. Resolutions on Building the Right2Know

We remain committed to building an organisation that ‘walks the talk’ – a campaign that practices democracy, transparency and accountability in our own organizational conduct.

 

3.1 Campaign Structures, Relations, Internal Democracy, Enabling Activism

1. R2K draws on a range of expertise across the Campaign and must work to strengthen synergies between the work of National Focus Groups, PWGs and provincial Focus Groups. National Focus Organisers and newly appointed Campaign Organisers in KZN and Gauteng should lead in this regard.
2. Acknowledging the weakness of national focus groups, we resolve to review and strengthen active participation in these structures by bringing more comrades and organisations into active participation in these structures, ensuring our Leadership Development programme builds capacity for participation, and that Focus Groups meet more regularly.
3. Close attention must be paid to operationalising the new roles of Provincial Community and Campaign Organizers (in KZN and Gauteng) to ensure the new division of work enhances synergies across national/provincial and coordinating/focus structures.
4. More must be done to enhance the quality of activism across the Campaign, especially in PWGs. We must strengthen our commitment to the Activist Code of Conduct to enhance accountability and ensure we all ‘walk the talk’.
5. We will reflect on the ‘coalition’ nature of R2K to ensure we draw more on the strengths of both individual and organisational participation.

 

3.2. Combating Patriarch

1. As we strive to be a feminist organisation, we would continue to focus on creating a friendly space for women internally. This work will entail engagement with both men and women to understand patriarchy and feminism as well as women’s only work. A budget should be provided for this at National level.
2. Formalise provincial focus groups with a convenor in each province and we will explore employing a combating patriarchy national organiser as part of the staff review.
3. In order to institutionalise this work properly, we resolve to strengthen the communication between the provincial chapters and National Feminist Team    
4. We will have a national workshop on how to confront patriarchy in all our legs and programmes.
5. To continue to make R2K a safe space for women and the LGBTIQA+ community through gender sensitising workshops and raising awareness about our sexual harassment policy.
6. We will invest in leadership development for R2K women to strengthen their voices, but also resolved to do Gender Training with all the incoming NWG and Provincial leadership in the next three months before the next MTR.
7. Embark on popular education, exchange visits, camps, participatory research for women, gender sensitisation workshops for everyone at R2K around combating patriarchy.
8. We will strive to have womxn represent at least 50% of leadership at all levels of decision-making.
9. We will continue to collaborate with other women’s organisations and LGBTIQA+ organisations to fulfill our resolutions.

 

Secondary:

1. Conduct gender representation audit across the provinces.

3.3 National Solidarity Network (Outreach)

1. Through work in our focus areas, we will continue to strengthen and grow the National Solidarity Network networks in the six provinces where R2K has no democratic structures. We will provide practical support on protest, access to information, media and strategy.
2. We will conduct popular education and training in each province, with at least one access to information training and one right to protest training per province.
3. We will prioritise the building & capacitating of both the national and provincial outreach focus groups, to better ensure integration of work  and activism at both national and provincial levels.

Secondary:

1. The outreach budget will be divided between a travel budget and a programme budget, and increased to reflect this change.
2. We will encourage outreach networks to participate in R2K national actions.
3. Provincial outreach will focus on expanding R2K networks within the rural and peri-urban areas within the structured provinces.
4. We will explore the option of setting up R2K structures in Limpopo and Free State. The outreach Focus Group will conduct mapping of the political, geographic, organisational and social landscapes in these provinces to report to the NWG by the mid term review so that this can inform the campaign’s decision.

3.4 Local struggles

 

• Assist local communities to hold local government accountable and transparent through participatory democracy by strengthening and sustaining existing relationships with grassroots organisations.

• Ensure R2K activists representing organisations/structures regularly report R2K issues to their constituencies and report their organisational/local struggles to R2K.

• Provincial Focus Groups and local struggles in each province must work together to do information gathering and produce popular education.

• Each Province to identify at least two new grassroots organisations that we can work with and with whom we can build solidarity.

 

 

Secondary:

1. Use our networks to assist local struggles to connect with partner organisations, chapter 9 institutions and other role players working on similar issues.
2. Increase visibility of the Campaign in grassroots organisations and communities informed by struggles.
3. Continue to consolidate and maintain a database of support organisations, local struggles and individuals to document their respective struggles, areas of experience and their constituencies.
4. Link community struggles to community media to ensure that communities own their community media.
5. Encourage local struggles to tell their stories through the R2K tabloid and social media.
6. All new organisations and activists must receive R2K orientation within at least two months of joining.

3.5 Leadership Development & Popular Education

1. Conduct continuous leadership capacitation education and training at three levels, addressing the capacity needs of activists, National leadership, coordinators and staff
2. Connect National Focus Group work with provincial Focus Group work by conducting popular education to enhance all activists understanding of the work of Focus Groups
3. Produce popular education and training material that reflects on/and strengthens local community struggles

3.6 Finances & Staffing

1. Ensure induction and training so staff and activists who either account/administer funds meet their oversight and administrative responsibility and can ensure financial accountability.
2. We will continue to strengthen the democratic oversight of our finances including ensuring each Province discusses their monthly financial report at their PWG meetings and Provincial Coordinators receive SMS notification on withdrawals and regular access to Bank account statements.
3. Revisit Salary Bands and Remuneration policy to review the percentage gap between top and lowest (full-time) staff and ensure we respect the equal work for equal pay principle.
4. Continue to explore the establishment of an ‘activist solidarity fund’.
5. Reviewing staffing needs and component across the campaign. (Combating Patriarchy Organiser and the Research Coordinator)
6. A task team with a rep from each Province including staffers who are in charge of fundraising should review our fundraising strategy to report at the MTR.