SEAPA | Southeast Asian Press Alliance

Theme: Gearing up for a community in 2015 - How free is the flow of information in ASEAN?

For 2011, the Journalism Fellowship attempts to take a closer and analytical look at ASEAN’s plans for integration, in particular policies and regulations aimed at facilitating the free flow of information.  To date, only two countries in the region – Thailand and Indonesia – have laws on access to information at the national level, but the media and the public have yet to fully benefit from these laws.

ASEAN is working towards becoming a community of close to 600 million people starting in 2015. The governments in the region are committed to establishing a rules-based community that is people-oriented and to building a common economic market. But what about the flow of information?

The Fellowship encourages journalists to investigate the extent to which information is accessible to the public and to what extent governments are serious in wanting to promote freedom of information.