African Research on the Web
African universities, consortia,
networks, and think tanks are rich resources; their journals, books, and research
reports are increasingly available electronically and relevant for teaching,
learning, and research. Please remember that this page only includes links to
Web sites with African content. Finally, we do not control these Web sites or
their content; these sites are governed by their own user agreements and privacy
policies, which you should read.
This page is arranged in six, sometimes overlapping, categories:
- biomedical and health
sciences
- building blocks for
online teaching
- food security
- multidisciplinary
resources
- resource management
and the environment
- social sciences and
humanities
You will find both technical and
disciplinary tools in "building blocks for online teaching." Please
go to the "African
Educational Resources" page if you are interested in links to organizations
that work in the area of higher education in Africa.
We have included as many
sites as we could identify, but the sites described below are a
small sample of what can done online. We are certain that there
are many more resources. Please email the Partnership
for Higher Education in Africa if you know of additional sites.
Please bear in mind that our focus is on African high-quality online
information that is both relevant to researchers and free or at
low cost in Africa.
Be sure to go
to the multidisciplinary resources. Both AJOL and DATAD link
to a wide range of subjects—from agriculture to zoology.
For resources on
higher education in Africa, go to Partnership publications
and the "Useful Links" page. |
1. Biomedical and
Health Sciences
Action Health Incorporated
http://www.actionhealthinc.org
Action Health Incorporated is a
non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to improving the health
of Nigerian adolescents. Because there are ver poor resourcws and databases
on the status of adolescent helath, sexuality, and development in Nigeria,
AHI publishes a wide range of resource materials including newsletters, fact
sheets, reports, and guidelines. You will find summaries and some full text
of AHI publications on its Web site.
Africa Regional Sexuality
Resource Center
http://www.arsrc.org/
The Africa Regional Sexuality Resource
Center (ARSRC), which was established in 2003, is part of a Ford Foundation
five-year grant-making initiative, the "Global Dialogue of Sexual Health
and Well Being" that aims at giving visibility, depth, and legitimacy
to the field of sexuality. The ARSRC focuses on four of the most populous
countries in each region of Africa: Egypt (North Africa), Kenya (East Africa),
Nigeria (West Africa), and South Africa (Southern Africa). The center is hosted
at Action Health
Incorporated, a Nigeria-based non-governmental organization. (Action Health
Incorporated is described above.)
African Genome Initiative
http://www.africagenome.co.za
The Africa Genome Initiative is
a project of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa. Its
goal is to examine the historical, ethical, legal, biomedical, and biotechnological
implications of the international Human Genome Project for research and development
in Africa. The sequencing of the human genome has enormous implications for
Africa; it is essential that Africa's scientists, scholars, and civil society
take full part in the Human Genome Project. In addition to information about
genome conferences in Africa, you will also find the full text of two journals
on the Web site: The Journal of Genomics and African Society, which
is an internationally peer-reviewed journal, and The African Scientist.
AfroAIDSinfo
http://wwwafroaidsinfo.org
AfroAIDSinfo is an
HIV/AIDS portal for Southern Africa maintained by the South African
Medical Research Council (MRC). Registration is required, but
is free, after which members receive the AfroAIDSinfo newsletter
and have access to news updates full-text documents, information
about events and conferences, and links to HIV/AIDS-related resources.
Network for
Equity in Health in Southern Africa
http://www.equinet.org.zw
The Network for Equity
in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET), which is headquartered
in Zimbabwe, is a regional network of research, civil society,
and health sector organizations. The full text of EQUINET publications
will be found on its Web site. EQUINET research themes include
equity in health, economic and trade policies, poverty and health,
human resources, resource allocation and health financing, equity
and HIV/AIDS, governance and participation in health, etc. Access
to the EQUINET Web site is free.
SA HealthInfo
http://www.sahealthinfo.org
SA HealthInfo
is a research knowledge translation tool and service to support
innovation and improved decision-making in southern African health
sectors. Like AfroAIDSino above, it is hosted by the MRC. SA HealthInfo
advertises itself as a "one-stop shop for reviewed, including
evidence-based health information, focusing on Southern Africa.
Registration is free.
2. Building Blocks
for Online Teaching
The Web sites described
below will help lecturers build innovative course materials. Although
most countries on the continent have only recently begun to experiment
with using ICT for teaching, there are a few South African Web
sites that will help you convert "talk 'n chalk" to something
more dynamic.
African Institute
for Mathematical Sciences
http://www.aims.ac.za
The African Institute
for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) is a new educational center in
Cape Town, South Africa, which hopes to promote mathematics and
science in Africa, recruit and train talented students and teachers,
and build capacity for African initiatives in education, research,
and technology. AIMS currently offers a one-year postgraduate
course in Cape Town, which is taught by African and international
lecturers. In the future, AIMS hopes to establish an African Mathematics
Institutes Network (AMI-Net), which would establish five well-connected,
high quality centers in Africa for the exchange of teaching and
research materials and scientific data by email and the Internet.
It isn't easy to find,
but there is an AIMS Resource page at http://www.aims.ac.za/resources/
where you can download AIMS computing tutorials, course notes
and problems, and presentations given at AIMS.
Botany@UWC
http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za
The Botany Department
of the University of the Western Cape in South Africa has put
together a Web site with links to online resources in botany and
biology. Not all of the links work, but the link to resources
does. Go to http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/resources.htm,
where you will find the EcoTree and the Internet Biological Education
Project, among other things.
Knowledge Environment
for Web-based Learning
http://kewl.uwc.ac.za
Knowledge Environment
for Web-based Learning (KEWL) is an open-source software package
developed at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.
It includes all the tools necessary to run and manage an online
course. KEWL offers a viable alternative to expensive proprietary
course-ware packages. For an example of KEWL output, go to Seaweed
Africa.
Strengthening
Gender and Women's Studies for Africa's Transformation
http://www.gwsafrica.org
The African Gender
Institute (http://web.uct.ac.za/org/agi/)
has established a program for Strengthening Gender and Women's
Studies for Africa's Transformation (GWS Africa). GWS Africa aims
to strengthen African teaching and research in gender studies
by bringing together teachers and researchers based in African
universities in a series of training, research, and publishing
activities that involve a combination of online communications
and workshops. The GWS Africa resources page links to excellent
teaching materials. Icons subdivide each one as a "key resource,"
an "exercise," or a "bibliographic listing."
The Virtual
Plant Home Page
http://anubis.ru.ac.za/virtualplant/anatomy/
The Virtual Plant Home
Page has been developed primarily as a hands-on aid to student
revision and is based on the introductory Plant Anatomy courses
offered at several universities, including Rhodes University in
South Africa, where this resource was written. The primary objectives
are to introduce the reader to the internal structure of higher
plants in their vegetative state. The Virtual Plant therefore
includes information on plant structure-function interrelationships
where this is appropriate. This material was produced as an adjunct
to Plant Anatomy—an applied approach in which the student
learns about principles of plant anatomy and examines some of
its applications in more detail.
Yenza!
http://www.nrf.ac.za/yenza
"Yenza," which means
"do it" in isiXhosa and isiZulu, is a guide to using the Internet
for research and teaching in the South Africa. The project's understanding
of "using the Internet for research" includes using Internet tools
for finding information, for condicting research, as well as for
disseminating research-related information. The Yenza! site was
developed by the South African National Research Foundation in
partnership with the Infolit Project of the Adamastor Trust. Materials
on the site comprise a mixture of annotated links to resources
in South Africa and elsewhwere as well as materials developed
specifically for Yenza!. In selecting outside resources, the project
team has looked for materials that are highly rated by subject
experts.
3. Food Security
African Crops
http://www.africancrops.net
An initiative of The
Rockefeller Foundation, African Crops focuses its work on research
and training in biotechnology, breeding, and seed systems for
African crops. The program supports work on seven crops of importance
to food security throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Maize and cassava—Africa’s
leading staple food crops—are given highest priority. Grant
funding is also targeted to improvement strategies with high potential
for impact focused on common beans, sorghum, rice, banana, and
cowpea. The program’s primary geographic focus is Eastern and
Southern Africa. The African Crops home page includes excellent
abstracts on research underway, links to collaborating organizations,
news of the day, and information on conferences. There is also
a database of grants completed and underway, which has descriptions
of the research undertaken and contact information for the primary
investigator.
Association
for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central
Africa
http://www.asareca.org/
The Association for Strengthening
Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) is a network
of national agricultural research institutes in ten countries, which was established
to promote regional strategies for agricultural research and research-related
training. You will find the full text of ASARECA newsletters and reports on
its Web site, as well as links to other agricultural research organizations
in the sub-region. There is also a link to the Regional Agricultural Information
Network (RAIN), for which ASARECA serves as the secretariat (http://www.asareca.org/rain).
Regional Universities Forum
for Capacity Building in Agriculture
http://www.ruforum.org
The Regional Universities Forum
for Capacity Building in Agriculture, which is headquartered at Makerere University,
is a Rockefeller Foundation initiative to improve postgraduate training and
research in agriculture. The Forum works with universities in Uganda, Kenya,
Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. It has a special interest in maize and banana-based
systems, but will consider all other crops within the context of food security
for smallholder farmers. Forum grantees (researchers and their students) have
an enviable publication record. You will find the citations of their published
articles and lengthy research report abstracts on the Forum Web site. There
is also a list of students who have graduated under Forum auspices, with information
on what they have done following graduation.
4. Multidisciplinary
Resources
African Journals
Online
http://www.ajol.info
African Journals Online
(AJOL) is a database of more than 200 African-published journals
in a variety of academic disciplines. Every entry includes information
about the participating journal, contact details, and general
information. Citations provide the tables of contents and abstracts,
where available, for all articles published in these journals.
Alink is also provided for journals with their own Web site. All
material in AJOL is free to view, search, and browse. Full-text
documents may be ordered in print or by email. There is no charge
for African users.
Database of
African Theses and Dissertations
http://www.aau.org/datad
The Database of African
Theses and Dissertations (DATAD) is an initiative of the African
Association of Universities (AAU) to help African universities
to manage, catalogue, and make available electronically citations
to theses and dissertations completed at these institutions. Currently
11 universities and the Council for the Development of Social
Science Research in Africa participate in DATAD. Each record contains
the full citation, including the entire abstract and contact information
for odering the full-text document. DATAD is available online
and on CD-ROM for African institutions with slow bandwidth. A
subscription is required, but there are discounts for African
organizations. (Participating universities receive DATAD free
of charge.)
Index Kenya
http://www.indexkenya.org
Index Kenya is an online
database of citations from four Kenyan newspapers. As of October
2004, the database included entries for alamost 13,000 articles
from 1993-2001. The goal is to go back to 1980. Although the initial
focus was on culture, the project now indexes articles on reproductive
health, human rights and governance, and other subjects. Currently
only citations are available online, but full text can be ordered.
5. Natural Resources
and the Environment
African Centre
for Technology Studies
http://www.acts.or.ke
The African Centre
for Technology Studies (ACTS) is an international, intergovernmental
policy research institution located in Nairobi, Kenya. Its mission
is to strengthen the capacity of African countries and institutions
to harness science and technology for sustainable development.
ACTS programs include biodiversity and environmental governance,
energy and water security, agriculture and food security, human
health, and science and technology literacy. ACTS also serves
as the secretariat for the Pan-African Programme on Land and Resource
Rights (PAPLRR). Many of the books and working papers published
by ACTS are available online.
African Energy
Policy Research Network
http://www.afrepren.org
With a secretariat
in Nairobi, Kenya, the African Energy Policy Research Network
(AFREPREN) was established in 1987 to strengthen African research
capacity and to harness it in the service of energy policy making
and planning. AFREPREN research has focused on renewables and
energy for rural development, energy services for the urban poor,
energy sector reform, and special studies of strategic significance
for the energy sector in Eastern and Southern Africa. Almost all
of the books, journal articles, occasional papers and working
papers by researchers affiliated with AFREPREN are available online
in their preprint versions.
African Laboratory
for Natural Products
http://www.ics.trieste.it/EssentialOils/alnap.aspx
The African Laboratory
for Natural Products (ALNAP), which is based at the Chemistry
Department of Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, was established
to serve as a forum for scientific research and cooperation for
the development of natural products science in Africa. Although
there are many databases tthat compile information on natural
products, the ALNAP database is the only one that focuses on Africa
and enters the source country as a keyword. The ALNAP database
is only available by subscription through NISC (http://www.nisc.com),
but there is a database of African essential oils on the ALNAP
Web site.
Arid Lands
Information Network
http://www.alin.or.ke
Located in Nairobi,
Kenya, the Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) is not a research
center. It is a network of community development workers who are
involved in drylands development. ALIN supports its constituency
by encouraging the exchange of ideas, information, and experience
on development work. ALIN has mounted its documentation online
and on CD-ROM. Students or researchers interested in enhancing
communication with and from grassroots communities will find the
ALIN site very useful.
Resource Africa
http://www.resourceafrica.org
Resource Africa, which
is located in Johannesburg, South Africa, is an NGO focusing on
Southern Africa. Its goals are to encourage and deliver new models
of natural resource management, based on community participation.
Resource Africa works with other international and African organizations
to present an African perspective on key issues in natural resource
management. You will find the full text of Resource Africa publications
on its home page, as well as an excellent director with links
that are subdivided by sector convention, organization, research
and information sources, and African regions and countries.
6. Social Sciences
and Humanities
African Economics Research
Consortium
http://www.aercafrica.org/
Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya,
the African Economics Research Consortium (AERC) was established in 1988 in
order to strengthen local capacity to conduct independent research into problems
pertinent to the management of sub-Saharan African economies. In order to
meet this objective, AERC supports postgraduate training programs in 20 universities,
research (including MA and Ph.D. thesis research), conferences, and publications.
Both the full text and abstracts of all AERC publications will be found on
its Web site.
African Gender Institute
http://web.uct.ac.za/org/agi/
The African Gender Institute (AGI)
at the University of Cape Town in South Africa has as its mission to build
intellectual capacity and establish an African resource dedicated to strengthening
and advancing the work of intellectuals, researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners
committed to the attainment of gender equity. AGI maintains many programs
and is responsible for undergraduate and postgraduate courses at UCT on gender
studies. It recently launched an online journal titled Feminist Africa,
which can be found at: http://www.feministafrica.org/.
Centre for Policy Analysis
http://www.cepa.org.gh
The Centre for Policy Analysis
(CEPA), which is part of the AERC network, was established in 1993 as an independent,
non-governmental policy center to provide rigorous analysis and perspectives
on the economic policy issues of Ghana and the developing world. The CEPA
Web site contains the full text of its research reports, including its overview
of the State of the Ghanian Economy for 2004-2005.
Council for the Development
of Social Science Research in Africa
http://www.codesria.org/
Located in Dakar, Senegal, the
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA)
was established in 1973 as an independent pan-African research organization
with a primary focus on the broadbased social sciences. CODESRIA maintains
a large publications program that includes books, journals, newsletters, and
monographs. The full text of some, but not all, of CODESRIA journals is available
online. In addition, the full text of selected CODESRIA monographs, conference
proceedings, and the CODESRIA newsletter will also be found on the site, as
will a full publications catalogue and ordering information.
Digital Imaging Project
of South Africa
http://disa.nu.ac.za/
The Digital Imaging Project of
South Africa (DISA) was established to make Southern African material of high
socio-political interest, which would otherwise be difficult to locate and
use, accessible to scholars and researchers worldwide. The first phase digitized
approximately 40 anti-Apartheid periodical titles, 1960-1994; several of them
are rare and not well represented in research collections. The second phase,
which is in its beginning stages, will focus on Southern African freedom struggles
from about 1950-1994. (For access to additional anti-Apartheid materials,
go to the Web site of the African National Congress, which has mounted online
a collection of historical documents, dating back to the 1950s: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/index.html)
National Institute of Statistics
http://www.ine.gov.mz
If you need statistical information
about Mozambique and read Portuguese, go to the National Institute of Statistics
home page, which provides information on macro-economic indicators, statistics
by sector, socio-demographic indicators, the 1997 census results, and more.
Information is in Word, PDF, and database formats.
Organization for Social
Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa
http://www.ossrea.net/
Founded in 1980 and located in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern
and Southern Africa (OSSREA) is a regional research and capacity-building
network, with a constituency based on membership in 21 countries. Like CODESRIA,
OSSREA maintains an active research and publishing program. Although it only
publishes one journal, OSSREA has carried out a number of thematic research
projects, such as on dryland husbandry. The full text of all of these reports
is available online. OSSREA has also published a CD-ROM, with the full text
of more than 50 research reports and other documents from 1990-2000.
UNESCO World Heritage Sites
A number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites are located in Africa. One of them,
the Musée Historique d'Abomey, has a good Web site. It is an excellent
example of how a museum can begin to use the Internet creatively and is described
below. Go to http://whc.unesco.org/nwhc/pages/sites/main.htm
for an annotated list and links to all of the sites.
Musée Historique
d'Abomey
http://www.epa-prema.net/abomey/
Abomey was once the capital of
the ancient kingdom of Dahomey. The Abomey Historical Museum was created
by the French colonial administration in 1943. The entire palatial site
extends over approximately 99 acres and has been on UNESCO's World Heritage
list since 1985. Extensive conservation work and renovations have been carried
out since 1992. The Web site, which is available in English and French provides
information on the history, the architecture of the buildings and courtyards,
and the kings of Abomey. There are also links with descriptions of the collections.
The link to resources contains teaching resources about the Abomey kingdom;
there is even a "juniors" page, with games, puzzles, and a quiz.
And just to prove that you were there, albeit virtually, you can email a
virtual postcard, with the image and message of your choice.
Zimbabwe Women's Resource
Centre and Network
http://www.zwrcen.org.zw/
The motto of the Zimbabwe Women's
Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) is "reading is development."
The ZWRCN, gathers, interprets, publishes, and disseminates information in
gender and development in order to help women make informed choices about
their lives and influence government to implement gender-sensitive policies.
Its activities include advocacy and community action, gender and public finance,
and gender and HIV/AIDS. You will find the full-text of several ZWRCN reports
and studies on its home page. Be sure to go to the links for publications,
projects, programs, and the archives for a full listing of available documents.
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