Abstract
After independence, African countries of experimented with a philosophy which emphasised the harnessing of information for national development, to the exclusion of democracy. By the end of the 1980´s, the continent had achieved little national development. It faced, instead, an economic, social and political crisis. In the 1990´s, the continent is under pressure to combine the three, information, democracy and development as possible solutions to its crisis. A debate is going in Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa on government information policy, democracy and development. Information is considered to be vital for the democratic and development processes. Government information policy determines the nature and availability of that information.
This research project analyses the Zimbabwe government´s information policy of the 1980´s and the policy emerging in the 1990´s. The policy is evaluated to determine whether or not it is democratic. The research project is, in effect, an analysis of the relationship between government information policy, democracy and development. The conclusion reached is that the Zimbabwe government operates a dual information policy in pursuit of two apparently incompatible objectives, democracy and national development.