The World Press Freedom Day 2026 is scheduled to take place on May 4 and 5 in Lusaka, Zambia. The event, themed "Shaping a Future at Peace," will provide a critical opportunity to reaffirm freedom of expression as both a normative and empirical tool for shaping the future of information societies.
Co-hosted with Zambia and RightsCon 2026
The conference will be co-hosted with the Government of Zambia and organized back-to-back with RightsCon 2026. This arrangement will bring together press freedom advocates and digital rights communities at a time when the boundaries between journalism, technology, civic space, and human rights are increasingly interconnected.
Cross-fertilisation of Ideas
The event aims to enable cross-fertilisation of ideas, solutions, and approaches—including gender-responsive perspectives—among journalists, digital rights advocates, technologists, policymakers, regulators, civil society organisations, academia, researchers, educators, youth leaders, and content creators. This convergence offers a platform to move beyond diagnosis toward coordinated action, aligning journalism, technology (including AI), and human rights actors around practical ways to strengthen information ecosystems for the future.
