One of the country’s development partners – Oxfam Malawi has bemoaned lack of awareness on the enforcement of much-touted Access to Information (ATI) Law.

Project Manager for Access to Information Project Frank Zoto said this during day-long validation meeting of the ATI Handbook organised by the Media Council of Malawi (MCM) in Lilongwe on Friday.

She said: “Sometimes we assume that probably that journalists know it all but probably we also need to have intentional approaches in which we are building the capacity of journalists to use this particular law.”

Whilst urging journalists in the country to fully utilise the yet-to-be released handbook, Zoto said more needs to be done on capacity building of both journalists and the citizenry on how they can use the law.

“Some of the observations we have made is that there are limited knowledge in terms of how the citizenry can use this particular law, the citizenry doesn’t know that they can use this law,” observed Zoto.

On his part, the Council’s board Chairperson Wisdom Chimgwede said for journalists to communicate right information, they need be well informed too especially on how they can access any relevant information.

“For us to effectively do that we need to be a media that is well informed, so what we have noted over the years is that there is kind a dwindling reading culture within the media space as well just like it is for the entire nation.

And to bridge that gap we have tried to come up with a booklet that does provide the immediate guide in terms of what it is that me as a journalist needs to do when I want to access information that is held by public officers, institutions and departments.”

The validation meeting was organised with financial support from Oxfam Malawi.

ATI was enacted in 2017 and operationalised 3 years later to substantiate section 37 of the country’s constitution.