17 - The status and future of the African journal

Abstract

This chapter describes the current environment for African-published journals across the large and diverse continent. It finds that many journals struggle for visibility amid the highly professionalized journals environment elsewhere in the world. Equally, many of the African journals are poorly funded or are supported by their parent organization, and this has led to a weak environment for indigenous research publishing. Against this background, the chapter describes the increase in initiatives to support indigenous publishing and increase the visibility of research undertaken in the 55 diverse countries. Recent changes have included a large increase in the number of repositories and support for authoring and editorial skills. These recent changes, including improved access to the Internet, are dramatically changing the quality of articles and journals although there still remain questions over financial and operational sustainability in this fragile environment.