Policy paper

Media Freedom Coalition: an overview

Updated 2 February 2022

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

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Overview

The Media Freedom Coalition was formed in July 2019 at the Global Conference for Media Freedom and is a partnership of countries working together to advocate for media freedom and safety of journalists and hold to account those who harm journalists for doing their job. The Coalition’s raison d’etre is to defend media freedom where it is under threat.

Members of the Coalition have signed the Global Pledge on Media Freedom, a written commitment to improving media freedom domestically and working together internationally.

The Coalition will promote media freedom by lobbying on individual cases, working to hold abusers to account, supporting members of the Coalition and other countries to improve protections for the media and making collective statements in multilateral fora.

The first full meeting of Senior Officials of all Coalition members met in Geneva on 29 to 30 January 2020 to agree terms of reference (including mechanisms for joining the Coalition), lobbying mechanisms and priorities. Members of the Coalition have agreed a concluding statement.

In light of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the UK and other members of the Executive Group of the Media Freedom Coalition agreed a statement on 6 April 2020. It reaffirms the fundamental importance of media freedom and calling on all states to protect access to free media.

Members

So far, 50 countries are members of the Media Freedom Coalition and all have signed the Media Freedom Pledge:

  • Afghanistan
  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Belize
  • Botswana
  • Bulgaria
  • Canada
  • Chile
  • Costa Rica
  • Croatia
  • Cyprus
  • the Czech Republic
  • Denmark
  • Estonia
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Ghana
  • Greece
  • Guyana
  • Honduras
  • Iceland
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Kosovo
  • Latvia
  • Lebanon
  • Lithuania
  • Luxembourg
  • Maldives
  • Montenegro
  • the Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • North Macedonia
  • Portugal
  • Republic of Korea
  • Serbia
  • Seychelles
  • Sierra Leone
  • Slovakia
  • Slovenia
  • Spain
  • Sudan
  • Switzerland
  • Ukraine
  • the United Kingdom
  • Uruguay
  • the United States

Follow the Media Freedom Coalition on Twitter: @MediaFreedomC

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