Frequently asked questions

To pool experience, meet the challenges of digitisation, archiving and secure dissemination, establish a common framework (standards and charter), and promote fair, reliable and universal access to legal information.

It lays the foundations for a regular and inclusive dialogue and initiates more transparent, modern governance in which legal information becomes a shared public good.

African States and their institutions responsible for official gazettes and legal publications. Technical partners may be involved in accordance with the approved rules.

An intergovernmental coordination mechanism, with a secretariat/focal point and thematic working groups. The exact arrangements are set out in the Charter and the reference documents.

The Charter formalises commitments, sharing principles, technical standards and interoperability arrangements, so as to ensure lasting and structured cooperation.

Sharing of digitisation and archiving solutions, harmonisation of formats and metadata, security of publication workflows, and cost reduction through common tools and proven good practices.

Yes. The Forum aims at the gradual adoption of common standards (metadata schemas, identifiers, consolidated versions, authentication procedures) to ensure interoperability.

A Cooperation Charter, technical guidelines (OCR, indexing, signature/time-stamping), table-of-contents templates, and connectors to ejo.africa and the national websites.

By centralising references, providing open indexing and reliable links to official sources, with close attention to the availability, integrity and traceability of texts.

Reuse depends on national regimes and on the agreements of the official publishers. Metadata may generally be cited or reused with attribution; PDF files are subject to the rules of each country.

State the title of the instrument, the country, the official gazette (issue number/date), the exact URL on ejo.africa and the date of access.

Targeted training (digitisation, OCR, metadata, security), exchange workshops, documentation and support for implementing the common standards.

Through common schemas, documented APIs and connectors that allow national systems to communicate with one another and with ejo.africa.

The Forum seeks modern solutions (signature/time-stamping, full-text search, consolidation, long-term archiving) and their gradual roll-out across Member States.

ejo.africa aggregates metadata and reliable links to official sources, with a PDF viewer and full-text search where OCR is available.

A REST API (JSON) for interoperating with national websites; rate limits depend on the profile (intensive use through an agreement or extended token).

Targeted standards: common metadata schemas, identifiers for legal instruments, authentication procedures, signature/time-stamping and long-term archiving.

Accessibility and inclusion: responsive interface, keyboard navigation, “prefers-reduced-motion” support and dark theme.

Performance and sustainability: caching/CDN, mirroring where applicable, a continuity plan and content versioning.