Over a decade ago, SAIIA and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Canada embarked on a joint mission to make African policy research more visible and more accessible through the Africa Portal project. There was then – and still is now – a palpable need for the important, evidence-based research being produced on the continent to feature more prominently in policymaking and decision-making, and to correct the imbalance in knowledge flows between the Global North and Africa.
Established in 2010, the Africa Portal has grown in strides to become a leading digital library of open-access research and expertise on African policy issues. Each month, over 30 000 readers benefit from its cutting-edge collection of research and analysis on a wide range of issues including African development, economics, politics and global affairs.
We remain grateful to CIGI, whose financial support and partnership during 2010-2020 propelled the Africa Portal. SAIIA has steered the project for the past two years but, in the context of an increasingly challenging funding landscape, the Institute has taken the difficult decision to bring it to a close. As of 1 June, the Africa Portal will no longer be updated with new content. However, all is not lost: the existing research collection and editorial content will be archived and will remain available at www.africaportal.org.
We are grateful to the 95 think tanks in our partner network for sharing our vision of a one-stop research resource and contributing over 10 000 publications to the digital library.
The community of academics, researchers and journalists who chose our platform to publish their insights on have been an integral part of our success story.
To our readers far and wide: thank you for your support and engagement, and we hope that the existing archive will still be of value to you.
– Elizabeth Sidiropoulos (Chief Executive, SAIIA) and the Africa Portal team
