Global Africa | A scientific journal to revitalize African research.
Global Africa is a scientific journal at the core of a capacity-building program for junior researchers, aiming to contribute to the expression, dissemination, and strengthening of research in the social sciences and humanities on the African continent.
Program
The Global Africa program operates in a context where the African continent represents 13% of the world's population but contributes less than 3% to scientific publications. Today, while the African researchers elite publish in international journals, the majority still rely on national contexts characterized by local journals and often unappealing university presses.
The crisis in higher education in Africa has left the academic community without a viable publishing means or the capacity to produce, promote, and disseminate the results of its researchers at the continental and international levels – an essential condition for amplifying African voices in global debates.
In most countries, the allocation of resources between research, teaching, and consultancy activities is skewed against research. This results in multiple and cumulative failures: significant aspects of ongoing political, socio-economic, cultural, and environmental transformations remain unintelligible because they are not conceptualized from within the continent.
Teaching practices remain stagnant due to the lack of research. Public policies do not sufficiently rely on reliable data, leading to the continent being primarily understood through external perspectives and, more broadly, its voices remaining largely unheard in international discussions.
In addition to these challenges, research is often compartmentalized by discipline, predominantly produced in English or French, and heavily skewed towards male representation. These factors sharply raise questions about its social legitimacy and its integration into society – that is, its ability to identify and address the essential needs of societies and institutions.
Partners
The ambition of Global Africa is to have a broad impact across the entire African continent through a unifying organizational structure. The program has been co-created by four institutions: LASPAD at Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis (Senegal), the Institut of Recherche and Development (France), the International University of Rabat (Morocco) and LASDEL in Niamey-Parakou (Niger-Benin). These institutions jointly steer the program as a consortium.
In addition to the four core partner institutions, Global Africa has nine other collaborating organizations:
African Studies Association for Africa (ASAA), Ghana
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Senegal
National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies(INSEE), France
University of Manouba (ULM), Tunisia
Les Afriques dans le monde (LAM), France
Institute of African Worlds (IMAF), France
The Conversation, France
Virtual University of Senegal (UVS), Senegal
Network of Science Journalists in Francophone Africa (RJSAF), West Africa
Funding
The program is funded with a budget of 2.65 million euros over four years. The main financial support (1.5 million euros) comes from the French Develpment Agency (56 %).
Consortium members directly contribute to the program's funding, accounting for 24%. The remaining funding is generated through revenue from online certification courses and a fundraising strategy. The program's model has been designed to ensure its sustainability beyond the initial four years of operation.
Please contact us for more information about program coordination, the journal, or partnership opportunities.