The Africa Portal: Making African policy research clear and accessible

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Much excellent policy research undertaken by African think tanks does not reach a wider continental and global audience because of capacity constraints regarding electronic dissemination of the work.

As a result, the African voice on key African issues such as economic development, peace and security, migration, governance, and food security is often not heard.

The Africa Portal, a project managed by SAIIA and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Canada, seeks to increase the usage, availability and accessibility of policy research produced by institutions across the continent.

The Portal is an online, open access knowledge repository that offers a range of features including an online library and an experts’ directory. The online library holds over 5000 digital documents including research reports, occasional papers and policy briefs. The entire online repository is open access, equipped with a sophisticated search facility and available for free, full-text download. Some of the digital documents housed in the library have been digitised, catalogued and abstracted for the first time.

Although the Portal content is currently mostly in English, research publications from Francophone partner institutions are available on the Portal in French with English abstracts.

The material for the library component has been provided by 57 content partners (mostly African research institutes) of the Africa Portal who see the benefit of wider dissemination of their research to the global community through this online vehicle. A unique element is that the Africa Portal content is primarily from African research institutions across the continent working on key African policy issues critical to the future development of the continent.

Please visit the site and if you find it useful, please consider linking it to your organisation’s website as a new information resource on African policy issues.

If your organisation is interested in becoming a content partner of the Portal and contributing material to it, or you would like to enquire further about the Africa Portal please contact Shingi.Muzondo@wits.ac.za.

3 Aug 2015