The following African Principles for Open Access in Scholarly Communication were Initially postulated and released in March 2019.
We declare to adhere to the following Principles for Open Access in Scholarly Communication in and about Africa:
1) Academic Research and knowledge from and about Africa should be freely available to all who wish to access, use, or reuse it while at the same time being protected from misuse and misappropriation.
2) African scientists and scientists working on African topics or territory will make their research achievements including underlying datasets available in a digital Open Access repository or journal and an explicit Open Access license is applied.
3) African research output should be made available in any of the principal common languages of the science community and also in one or more of the local or regional African languages.
4) It is important to consider indigenous and traditional knowledge in its various forms.
5) It is necessary to respect the diverse dynamics of knowledge generation and circulation by discipline and geographical area.
6) We recognise, respect, and acknowledge the regional diversity of African scientific journals, institutional repositories, and academic systems.
7) African Open Access policies and initiatives promote Open Scholarship, Open Source, and Open Standards for interoperability and long-term preservation purposes.
8) Multi-stakeholder mechanisms for collaboration and cooperation should be established to ensure equal participation across the African continent.
9) Economic investment in Open Access is consistent with its benefit to societies on the African continent – therefore institutions and governments in Africa provide the enabling environment, infrastructure, and capacity building required to support Open Access
10) African Open Access stakeholders and actors keep up close dialogues with representatives from all world regions, namely Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.
In case of comments, questions, or suggestions regarding the above principles, please email us at info@africarxiv.org
The African Principles for Open Access in Scholarly Communication were inspired by the following principles and guidelines:
- Dakar Declaration on Open Access Publishing in Africa and the Global South (2016)
- Invest in Open Infrastructure | investinopen.org
- FAIR Open Access Principles by the FAIR Open Access Alliance (FOAA)
- Principles of the Scholarly Commons
- Vienna Principles | viennaprinciples.org
- AmeliCA Principles and Values | amelica.org/en/index.php/principios-y-valores/
- Jussieu Appell | jussieucall.org/jussieu-appell