This article takes into account recent international trends in higher education, publishing and libraries, new technologies, and scholarly communication, with particular application to Africa and African studies. It outlines the diverse problems facing African scholars seeking to publish or communicate, looks at the current state of connectivity to the Internet in Africa, and how people are seeking to harness new technologies in the face of severe material limitations.

Scholarly communications in Africa continue to face enormous problems. Education, publishing, and telecommunications all suffer, with other sectors of the economy, from escalating socio-economic problems. The growing fragility of publishing, the inability of educational systems and libraries to maintain services, and the high cost of telecommunications all reflect the state of crisis in many African societies.

Economic and cultural domination of Africa by the West is likely to intensify with the spread of the Internet. However, Africans are developing electronic skills and forging new partnerships to try and optimize their use of the Net. Partnerships will be crucial in further extensions of the Internet in Africa but need to be mutually beneficial.

African Publishing

In 1981, Africa, "with 10 percent of the world population, produced a meager two percent of the global output of books."[2] A decade later, this share had slipped to one percent with 70 percent of book needs imported.[3] Whilst the weakest link in African publishing is distribution, and the postcolonial state has failed to develop this sector,[4] this is only part of the picture. Low incomes and weak infrastructures of bookshops, libraries and transport make for a bleak scene. Problems besetting African publishing can be summarized thus:

Several trends suggest that privatization is not the solution to problems of publishing in Africa. Firstly, in countries such as Guinea where textbook publishing has been opened to the private sector, many different obstacles continue to impede book development.[8] Secondly, Structural Adjustment Programs that require governments to spend less on education undermine the very literacy levels upon which publishing depends. Thirdly, the omnipotence of transnational corporations (TNCs) makes privatization a risky long-term strategy. African governments continue to contract out textbook production to TNCs whose power means that privatization policies merely strengthen dependency. Independent Tanzanian publisher Walter Bgoya stresses the need for financial independence for African publishers and has high hopes of leapfrogging the technology gap between Africa and the West to take advantage of the benefits of e-publishing.[9] However, this sector is unlikely to escape TNC influence. A balance between the private and public sectors and increased investment in indigenous publishing is more likely to reduce overseas domination of the book market.[10]

The idea of "leapfrogging the technology gap" by developing the Internet in Africa has been around for some years. The 1995 report "Increasing Internet Connectivity in Sub-Saharan Africa," commissioned by the World Bank, argued:

The information revolution offers Africa a dramatic opportunity to leapfrog into the future, breaking out of decades of stagnation or decline.... If African countries cannot take advantage of the information revolution and surf this great wave of technological change, they may be crushed by it.[11]

Proponents of this argument have invoked experiences in East Asia, where some countries were seen to be able to leapfrog entire stages of industrial development, though more recently, the notion has been viewed by some writers as simplistic.[12] However, it continues to offer hope of a solution to the chronic problems of traditional forms of publishing which have always proved expensive in the African context.[13]

Despite such problems, successful developments have occurred. Significant institutions have emerged to encourage African publishing, including the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa (established 1978), the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (1983), the African Books Collective (1989) and the African Publishing Network (1992).

African Connectivity: The Internet in Africa

To the above list of problems besetting publishing in Africa can be added difficulties specific to electronic publishing on the continent:

Africa on the Net: Content, Contradiction, and Cost

African countries at first embraced Internet technologies slowly and irregularly, reflecting their limited material resources. This can be seen in the patchwork map of African Internet connectivity (Figure 1). However, African governments, universities, NGOs, and companies have increasingly perceived the potential benefits of the Net and moved to develop ICT (information and communications technologies) policies, an approach fostered by international bodies such as the World Bank and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).[15] In May 1996, the ECA adopted the African Information Society Initiative: an action framework to build Africa's information and communication infrastructure. In 1997, the Dakar Declaration on the Internet and the African Media urged the creation of a culture of online communications with African content. In 1999, the ECA held the first African Development Program conference in Addis Ababa with the theme of the challenge of globalization and the information age.[16] In February 2000, the ECA Executive Secretary, K.Y. Amoako, told the Bamako 2000 conference that most African countries now included ICT development in their strategic planning. He pointed to Ghana's Vision 2020, Rwanda's Development Vision and Senegal 2015 as examples of plans to modernize African societies, using ICTs to accelerate urban and rural development. He noted that Africa needed "the physical hardware" but that it "must be accompanied by adequate education and an ICT culture."[17] By July 2000, the African Virtual University venture of the World Bank boasted learning centers in 15 African countries. In the same month, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on leaders of the world's richest nations to commit to "the goal of making IT accessible to all the world's people."[18]

Considerable progress has been made in connecting Africans to the Net. Statistics are imprecise, but the number of African Internet hosts grew from very few in the early 1990s to about 140,000 in 1997 (see Figures 3, 4 & 5).[19] Mike Jensen estimates that the number of African countries connected rose from 11 in 1996 to 49 in 1998. By July 1999, 53 of 54 African countries had some kind of Internet access in their capital cities (extended to other towns in 17 countries); by the end of 2000, this was true of all 54 countries. Rapid growth of telecenters or cybercafés, often located in public places, enabled cost-sharing and wider access in some 22 countries by mid-1999. At the same time, 14 countries had radio stations broadcasting on the Net, and 5 had e-Stock Exchanges. On the other hand, the limited nature of this growth is evident when one considers that 12 countries had only one public access Internet Service Provider (ISP).[20] Africa remains the least-connected continent, but use of the Internet by African governments, NGOs and scholars is growing.[21]

There are several reasons for this relative lack of access. Firstly, Africa suffers from slow connection speeds (Figure 1). Secondly, there are pronounced class and regional imbalances and high costs when it comes to accessing electronic resources. In 2001, Jensen estimates the average cost of using a local dialup Internet account for five hours a month in Africa at US $68/month (excluding telephone line rental); by comparison, 20 hours of access in the US cost around $29 (including telephone charges). Each computer with Internet or email connections supports an average of three to five users, suggesting that the total number of African users is around four million (1.5 million outside South Africa), or, put differently, there is approximately one Internet user per 200 people (the average world ratio is 1:30).[22]

South and North Africa are the most developed in terms of ICT technology, while East and West Africa are less developed, and Central Africa least of all. Leading countries by region are: South Africa; Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco; Kenya and Uganda (to a lesser extent Tanzania and Ethiopia); Senegal and Ghana (followed by Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Niger); Cameroon and Gabon; Mauritius and Seychelles. Far behind these countries in connectivity are Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda, Sudan, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo, and Madagascar. South Africa acts as a hub for Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland and there is a Mauritius-Madagascar link, but most Net connections are via the US. The tyranny of distance remains: user-to-site routes in Africa are excessively long, averaging 1000 miles compared to 100 miles in developed countries. Social and educational dimensions of usage are also uneven. An ECA survey noted that the main users were NGOs, companies, and universities. Most users were male (86 percent in Ethiopia, 83 percent in Senegal) and well-educated. Moreover, whereas universities largely pioneered the Internet in Africa, Jensen notes that due to limited resources and high costs, by 1999 only 20 African countries had universities with full connectivity.

Given the high cost and slow speed of the Net in many parts of Africa, email services have often proved more popular than the Web. Today email remains popular, but many African users prefer free (often US-based) Web services to more expensive local email services. Use of the Web by African libraries and scholars continues to grow but that expansion has been very uneven. As Jensen notes, relative to the West, few African corporate bodies use the Web extensively, due to limited skills and high costs (see Figure 2). Web-based information services are certainly well-established in South Africa but not in most other African countries. Government Web sites have been set up in South Africa, Egypt, Gabon, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, Togo, Tunisia and Zambia, but few governments yet use the Web except in areas such as tourism and foreign investment. The ECA survey found that government employees comprised only one percent of Net users in Ethiopia, and six percent in Zambia. Large-scale aid from the Canadian and French governments has enhanced Web sites in several Francophone African states, and various regional intergovernmental bodies, such as the ECA and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), have established information-rich sites.

Web content about Africa has proliferated worldwide. Examples include the excellent e-guides to African studies[23] and home pages of university departments that often include substantial amounts of documentary information.[24] The Africa-focused commercial Web search engines Orientation Africa and Woyaa seek to increase the visibility of African Web resources and, whilst owned by companies in Hong Kong and Britain respectively, seek to overcome the limited indexing of African sites by Western search engines.[25]

In March 2000, Eritrea finally achieved local Net access. At the same time, it was plunged into a debilitating border war with Ethiopia, severely depleting the limited resources of the country. This prompts the question: can Africa afford the Net?[26] Conversely, some people might retort, pointing to the business and research opportunities offered by telecommunications, can Africa afford not to have the Net?

Partnership or Profit? Can Africa Afford the Net?

Many writers see a way forward in partnerships of various kinds. Among the major partnership initiatives are the UN System-Wide Initiative on Africa; the USAID/Leland Initiative; the World Bank's African Virtual University; the Acacia program of Canada's International Development Research Center (IDRC); UNESCO's Creating Learning Networks for African Teachers project (in Zimbabwe and Senegal); and the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) Internet Initiative for Africa. Some of these projects involve trade-offs in the political and economic sectors: the Leland Initiative, for example, is linked to market liberalization, while privatization of telecommunications in some African countries, such as Senegal, has increased the number of telephone lines, the scarcity of which has been a major impediment to Internet expansion.[27]

Cogburn and Adeya recently analyzed what they termed the challenges and opportunities of globalization and the information economy for African countries, arguing that they must address weaknesses in infrastructure, government strategy, and human resources development. Since 1995, many African economies have achieved rising GDP growth and falling inflation (though limited by financial crises in 1998-9) and made substantial progress towards building "the Information Society." However, ever-widening gaps between "developed" and "developing" countries, and within countries between the "digital elite and the unconnected," will continue to limit advancement:

Countries that do not facilitate this information revolution will likely fall further behind, both relative to the rest of the world and relative to other countries in the African continent.[28]

Cogburn and Adeya argue that it is thus imperative for Africans to form strategic partnerships.

Given that much information in Africa is still produced in printed format, and that this situation is likely to remain for some time to come, it would seem that both in Africa and in overseas scholarship on Africa, the aim of libraries and information centers should be to achieve a judicious balance between traditional and electronic sources of information, between "access" and "ownership," however much this may appear to depart from recent Western library preferences for the former. (As costs of journals have risen, many Western libraries have switched to focus on timely access to information rather than mere ownership of materials.) Moreover, many African publications, particularly journals, simply do not find their way into large Western commercial databases, and librarians must therefore continue to monitor and access print materials. There is also the question of the preservation of electronic sources: the danger of Web sites disappearing and important data being lost remains real. On the other hand, too much reliance on printed matter means exposing African documents to problems such as a tropical climate or political instability, the latter graphically witnessed in the recent Guinea-Bissau civil war, when the national archives were decimated.

In the face of continuing sharp rises in the cost of commercially-provided information, scholarly associations and libraries involved in the study of Africa are seeking to create viable alternatives and develop cooperative projects to improve the quality, quantity, and usage of documentation on Africa.[29] These projects include joint publishing ventures, exchanges, and co-publication agreements between African and Western universities, scholarly societies, publishers and libraries. Plans are emerging for collaborative open-access e-journals and a "new generation" of interactive e-journals with audio-visual content. E-publishing has the advantage of making texts available in perpetuity, achieving savings in subscription costs and greatly increasing speed of delivery of information. Disadvantages may include large technical and start-up costs. In Africa it is important that cooperative e-ventures are undertaken in tandem with ongoing technical assistance so that gains are not merely transitory.

Some joint ventures include publishing projects such as the African e-Journals Project, based at Michigan State University (MSU), Africa Journals Online of the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications, based in Oxford,[30] and the Multi-Lingual Digital Library for West African Sources. These projects all involve a wide range of partnerships between, on the one hand, Western institutions and, on the other hand, African scholarly bodies and publishers.

Whilst online newspapers are proving successful in Africa, little has been achieved with e-books. The netLibrary initiative in this field has proven successful in the US and, though commercial, has involved many university presses. Africa is also poorly represented in the developing field of e-dissertations, although Rhodes University in South Africa has joined the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations[31] and a promising cooperative dissertation project has been funded in Kenya by the Ford and the Rockefeller Foundations.[32] Initiatives in using Encoded Archival Description hold exciting possibilities for overcoming the enormous difficulties facing preservation of paper archives in many African countries.

Audio and video digitization can also enrich Africa and African studies, where oral traditions and performance occupy such an important place. Such a development is not without its own dangers: the electronic presentation of orality on Web video can never hope to fully capture a live performance, and sensitive issues of respect for culture and intellectual property rights need to be addressed. Nevertheless, this is an area where Africans could contribute a substantial amount of original content to the Net.

Today there is a wide range of Internet sites and other e-services in Africa, bolstered by burgeoning Africana Web sites around the world. The latter include moderated scholarly email discussion lists, Web- and CD-ROM-based databases, and home pages of African Studies Centers and individual scholars, while many email networks link Africa-based and Western scholars. In the humanities, the H-Africa family of networks has achieved substantial interaction, yet remains essentially Western-dominated in terms of membership.[33] However, numerous discussion lists based in African countries contribute to the rapid exchange of information and opinions on diverse subjects and help break down regional and international isolation.

In all these arenas, partnerships are likely to be crucial for funding future developments.[34] Whilst there is still resistance among some scholars worldwide to e-publishing, this is likely to decline as scholarly journals increasingly "migrate" to the Net. African Studies Centers and libraries, like all other scholarly bodies, will increasingly need to promote awareness of their collections and activities via the Web.[35] The drawbacks of slow and unreliable transport and postal services, expensive raw materials, and poor visibility can be transcended partially with e-publishing - but at a cost.

Political Dimensions

Efforts to expand ICT use in Africa also have important ramifications in politics. Western-imposed Structural Adjustment Programs requiring African governments to privatize, devalue currencies, and reduce trade restrictions, subsidies, and services such as health and education sit uneasily with Western efforts to boost the number of computers in Africa. TNCs, which are extending their control of Africa's Internet market, tend to view e-information as a commodity and make few concessions to local content in their provision of globalized e-services. Such policies are likely to lead to political campaigns for greater African independence.

Some critics claim that access to e-information can promote democracy in Africa by providing civil society with greater leverage vis-à-vis the state and elites. However, this is predicated on extending Net access beyond elites.[36] In 1998, Martin Hall pointed to the ambiguity of digital media: simultaneously aiding greater social openness and new forms of individual power and mass participation, yet also permitting new forms of privilege.[37] The following year, Article 19 mentioned that:

Issues of government control and censorship of the Net in Africa pale in comparison with the overriding problem of access. The sheer lack of access to basic telecommunications services means that three-quarters of Africa's people will never make a telephone call, let alone use the Internet. Simply by not having access to the new technology, their voices are effectively silenced and they are excluded from the benefits of participation in the global information society.[38]

To better appreciate these diverse developments it is useful to consider some concrete examples.

Case Studies

South Africa, the most industrialized African country, is also the most connected, with an estimated 2.5 million Internet users in mid-2001, including corporate and academic users.[42] This figure is based on a solid infrastructure: in 1998 South Africa already had 4.7 million telephone lines, 127,272 public telephones, and an estimated 3.8 computers per 100 inhabitants, with 83.45 Internet subscribers per 10,000 inhabitants.[43] Moreover, post-1994 ICT reform has occurred in a democratizing context.[44] Efforts are being made in South Africa by government and business to extend telecenters to communities and schools, with Microsoft Corporation rolling out model "digital villages" in some Black townships. However, despite high levels of electrification (greatly extended since 1994), isolation and low literacy levels continue to pose problems in connecting rural people to the Internet. A 1998 project in northern KwaZulu Natal found that surrounding schools did not benefit from a telecenter due to the long distances and lack of telephones.[45] South African e-commerce sales reached R3.9 billion in 1999 but predominantly involved the White minority (at the end of 1999, the country's Black population constituted less than one percent of national Net users, with only one-fifth of Blacks having telephone access).

Elsewhere, connectivity has been increasing, if modestly. Tunisia and Egypt have been regional pacesetters in North Africa, but in January 2000, barely 0.4 percent of Egyptians used the Net, with a lack of awareness or education rather than telecom infrastructure or cost being the major hindrances.[46] Nevertheless, costs are a major deterrent to access in many places. In Kenya in 1997, the estimated price for full Internet access was US $100.[47]

There are cases of impressive successes despite poor infrastructure or unfavorable political regimes. OAUNET, the campus-wide network of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, in Nigeria, links local area networks in ten individual university complexes through wireless equipment.[48] In Uganda, foreign aid and focused government policy have helped overcome high costs, with the World Bank World Links for Development program working to connect schools and the Acacia program extending e-services to agriculture, education, health, and commerce. However, feedback from pilot rural telecenters in Buwama, Nabweru and Nakaseke indicates that perceptions of local ownership and long-term sustainability are crucial problems to be overcome.[49]

In Senegal, the Société Nationale des Télécommunications (SONATEL) was partially privatized in 1997, abandoning provision of public telephone services in favour of licensing small businesses to run telecenters. Acacia argues that:

The recent liberalisation of the telecommunications sector . . . has demonstrated that the private sector plays a significant role in the provision of telecommunications services to large sectors of the population thus contributing to the goal of universal access. Recognising this, two national studies are underway to improve understanding of the environment in which the private sector will evolve.[50]

The dilemmas of African use of the Net are seen vividly in the cases of Sierra Leone, the Sudan and Somalia. Civil wars in all three countries appear to make expenditure on e-resources almost unethical in the face of basic human needs for peace and health. Nevertheless, as John Kargbo argued in 1997, the Net could help change Sierra Leone society by facilitating the exchange of views, aiding peace-keeping forces, and improving the information flow to hospitals, libraries, and businesses. He warned, however, that the high costs of hardware and software, the low rate of exchange for the local currency and the unreliability of the power supply mean that Net development needs sufficient investment, including training, to be made sustainable.[51] Somalia, via a satellite link from ArabSat, has only recently connected to the Internet. In the Sudan, a nine-fold increase in telephone lines since 1991 has not translated into substantially increased Net usage. This is due firstly to effective government control over the only ISP and secondly to the basic poverty of the country: "the highest paid individual in the civil service cannot afford the Internet services and with an estimated 85 percent of the population below the poverty line, the costs will continue to be prohibitive."[52]

The basic problems of high levels of poverty in Africa and high start-up and operating costs of e-services are very likely to influence the course of development of the Internet across the continent.

Conclusion

The trends outlined above are likely to continue. At the moment, Net services in Africa are chiefly confined to major cities, with regional users deterred by expensive long-distance calls. Yet satellite technology has the potential to extend e-services to rural Africa. The Wireless Web, in the form of "palm computers" and wireless local loop deployments, in conjunction with cellular telephones, which have proved popular in Africa (these account for 20 percent of the total number of telephones on the continent, and there were over 3 million in South Africa by mid-1999),[53] might well offer a viable way to "leapfrog" communication problems.

Partnerships will be crucial in further extensions of the Internet in Africa but should aim to be mutually beneficial. Economic and cultural domination of Africa by the West and TNCs is likely to remain a problem and even intensify with the spread of the Internet. Moreover, quick-fix prescriptions that privilege privatization policies will only exacerbate the problems they seek to solve. However, Africans are developing skills in employing electronic resources as tools in the educational and political spheres and it is thus also likely that they will forge new partnerships and strategies to endeavor to secure a measure of control over their own lives. Whether they succeed will depend largely on future ownership patterns of the Internet - but the danger of e-services becoming just another commodity in an unequal global trade is very real.

Notes

[1] An earlier, shorter version of this paper was presented to the "Africa 2000: Links, Land, and Identities" Conference, Curtin Africa Teaching & Research Group and African Studies Centre of Western Australia, John Curtin International Institute, Perth, Australia, July 2000.

[2] A. Arboleda, "Distribution: The Neglected Link in the Publishing Chain," in P. Altbach et al. (eds), Publishing in the Third World: Knowledge and Development, London: Mansell, 1985, p.47.

[3] E. Rathgeber, "African Book Publishing: Lessons from the 1980s," in P. Altbach (ed.), Publishing and Development in the Third World, London: Hans Zell, 1992, p.79.

[4] K. Smith, "What Factors are Preventing the Establishment of a Successful Indigenous National Publishing and Bookselling Industry in Africa?" The Culture of Publishing, vol.1, 1996, https://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/apm/publishing/culture/SMITH.HTM#LINK3a

[5] P. Altbach and T. Damtew (eds), Publishing in African Languages: Challenges and Prospects, Chestnut Hill, Ma.: Bellagio, 1999.

[6] M.M. Mulokozi, "Publishing in Kiswahili: A Writer's Perspective," in P. Altbach and T. Damtew (eds), Publishing in African Languages, Chestnut Hill, Ma.: Bellagio, 1999, pp.11-42.

[7] P. Altbach, "The Dilemmas of Publishing in African Languages: A Comparative Perspective," in P. Altbach and T. Damtew (eds), Publishing in African Languages, Chestnut Hill, Ma.: Bellagio, 1999, p.3; and other contributors.

[8] M.A. Sow, "A Guinean Perspective: Book Publishing and Distribution," Bellagio Publishing Newsletter, no.23, 1998, https://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/bell/newsletters/News23/article7.htm

[9] W. Bgoya, "How Can Independent Publishers Survive Against National Monopolies and Transnational Corporations?" cited in E.H. Gray, "Academic Book Production and Distribution in Africa," Seminar at the Christian Michelsen Institute, 10-11 April 1997, Bellagio Publishing Newsletter, no.20, November 1997, https://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/bell/newsletters/News20/article4.htm

[10] A. Saunders, "The Problems and Politics of Publishing in the Third World - With Particular Reference to Textbook Publishing in Africa," The Culture of Publishing, vol.1, 1996, https://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/apm/publishing/culture/SAUNDERS.HTM

[11] See E. Baranshamaje et al., "Increasing Internet Connectivity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Issues, Options, and World Bank Group Role," March 1995, https://www.uneca.org/eca_resources/publications/disd/old/padis/telemat/africa03.htm

[12] See A. Aden, "No Connection under This Number: Africa and the Internet," D+C Development and Cooperation, no.5, September/October 2000, pp.24-26, https://www.dse.de/zeitschr/de500-5.htm

[13] See the report on the UN seminar on the theme "The Internet as a Tool for Development" in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, 5-16 July 1999, https://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1999/19990728.PI1160.html. In November 2000, US technology specialist Nicholas Negroponte told a conference in Singapore that information technology was a "means for developing nations to leapfrog some of the steps that were taken in developing countries"; the report is cited by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, https://www.sabcnews.com/SABCnews/sci_tech/internet/0,1009,7218,00.html

[14] [United Nations] Economic Commission for Africa, "Strengthening Africa's Information Infrastructure," Theme Report to African Development Forum, Addis Ababa, November 1999, https://www.un.org/Depts/eca/adf/infrastructure.htm

[15] G. Nulens and L. Van Audenhove, "An Information Society in Africa? : An Analysis of the Information Society Policy of the World Bank, ITU and ECA," Gazette: International Journal for Communication Studies, vol.61, no.6, 1999. Critics of the Bank argue that its policies have produced inappropriate technology and a belief in technology as a panacea, as well as bolstering the power of Westernized elites: G. Nulens, "Socio-Cultural Aspects of Information Technology in Africa: The Policy of the World Bank," Communicatio, vol.23, no.2, 1997, https://www.unisa.ac.za/dept/press/comca/222/nulens.html

[16] "Africa in the Age of Information Technology," Africa Recovery (New York: United Nations) vol.13, no.4, December 1999, p.14.

[17] K.Y. Amoako, "Globalization: A Big Playing Field for Africa," Address to Bamako 2000, https://www.bamako2000.org/

[18] K. Annan, cited in "Another Call to Bridge the 'Digital Divide,'" News Update 19, https://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/back/balancing-act19.html

[19] M. Kibati, "What is the Optimal Technological and Investment Path to 'Universal' Wireless Local Loop Deployment in Developing Countries?" Paper to INET 1999, https://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/inet/99/proceedings/1c/1c_2.htm

[20] [M. Jensen], "Continental Connectivity Indicators, July 1999," https://www3.sn.apc.org/partial.html

[21] M. Jensen, "The African Internet - A Status Report," May 2001, https://www3.sn.apc.org/africa/afstat.htm; see also African Policy Information Center (APIC), "Africa on the Internet: Starting Points for Policy Information," https://www.africapolicy.org/inet.htm; and Nua reports, https://www.nua.ie/surveys/

[22] See M. Jensen, "The African Internet - A Status Report," May 2001, https://www3.sn.apc.org/Africa/afstat.htm

[23] See especially the guides by Karen Fung ("Africa South of the Sahara: Topics: The Internet and Computing") at https://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/Africa/elecnet.html and by Joseph Caruso ("African Studies: The Internet in Africa") at https://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/Africa/cuvl/Internet.html

[24] See for instance the University of Botswana History Department, https://ubh.tripod.com/

[25] See "Woyaa," https://www.woyaa.com/ and "Orientation Africa," https://af.orientation.com/en/home.html

[26] An example of this is A. Aden, "No Connection under This Number: Africa and the Internet," D+C Development and Cooperation, no.5, September/October 2000, pp.24-26, https://www.dse.de/zeitschr/de500-5.htm

[27] [United Nations] Economic Commission for Africa, "Strengthening Africa's Information Infrastructure," Theme Report to African Development Forum, Addis Ababa, November 1999, https://www.un.org/Depts/eca/adf/infrastructure.htm

[28] D.L. Cogburn and N. Adeya, "Globalization and the Information Economy: Challenges and Opportunities for Africa," Theme Report to African Development Forum, Addis Ababa, November 1999, https://www.un.org/Depts/eca/adf/infoeconomy.htm

[29] See P. Limb, "Changing Paradigms of Reference Librarianship in African Studies," The Reference Librarian (forthcoming, 2001).

[30] See "African Journals Online" at https://www.inasp.org.uk/ajol/index.html, and D. Rosenberg, "African Journals Online: Giving Journals Published in Africa a Presence on the Web," Paper to Conference "Scientific Communication and Publishing in the Information Age," Oxford, May 1999, https://www.inasp.org.uk/psi/scpw/papers/rosen.html

[31] See the "Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations," https://www.ndltd.org/index.htm

[32] See the "Database of African Theses and Dissertations," https://www.piac.org/datad/

[33] P. Limb, "The H-Africa Family of Lists," Paper to the SCOLMA Annual Conference, University of London, June 2000.

[34] P. Limb, "African and Africanist Scholarly Publishing in the Age of the Internet: Partner or Perish?" Paper presented at the University of Botswana, July 2001.

[35] D. Greenstein, "Creating Digital Library Services: Key Challenges," CLIR Issues, vol.14, 2000.

[36] D. Ott, "Power to the People: The Role of Electronic Media in Promoting Democracy in Africa," First Monday, issue 3, no.4, 1998, https://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_4/ott/index.html

[37] M. Hall, "Africa Connected," First Monday, issue 3, no.11, 1998, https://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_11/hall/index.html

[38] S. Burnheim, The Right to Communicate: The Internet in Africa, London: Article 19, 1999 [an excerpt can be found under the title "Africa And The Internet: A Medium For The Masses, Or Merely The Elite?" at https://www.thechronicle.demon.co.uk/archive/7_9_14af.htm].

[39] [United Nations] Economic Commission for Africa, "Democratizing Access to the Information Society," Theme Report to African Development Forum, Addis Ababa, November 1999, https://www.un.org/Depts/eca/adf/democratising.htm. There are now over 120 e-newspapers on and in Africa, with African news agencies such as Inter Press Service and the Pan African News Agency effectively exploiting online tools; see M. Jensen, "The African Internet - A Status Report," May 2001, https://www3.sn.apc.org/Africa/afstat.htm; cf. report of previous year.

[40] [United Nations] Economic Commission for Africa, "Information and Communication Technologies for Improved Governance in Africa," Theme Report to African Development Forum, Addis Ababa, November 1999, https://www.un.org/Depts/eca/adf/governance.htm

[41] See Adilisha, https://www.fahamu.org/ad_home.html, and F. Manji et al., "Enhancing the Capacity of Human Rights and Advocacy Organizations in Southern Africa," IDRC Study/Acacia Initiative, 2 December 1998, https://www.idrc.ca/acacia/04053/index.html

[42] See M. Jensen, "The African Internet - A Status Report," May 2001, https://www3.sn.apc.org/Africa/afstat.htm

[43] See "South Africa," https://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/nici/Documents_English/southpub.en.doc

[44] R. Horwitz, "Telecommunications Policy in the New South Africa: Participatory Politics and Sectoral Reform," Communicatio, vol.23, no.2, 1997, https://www.unisa.ac.za/dept/press/comca/222/horwitz.html

[45] R. Smith, "Overcoming Regulatory and Technological Challenges to Bring Internet Access to a Sparsely Populated, Remote Area: A Case Study," Paper to INET 2000, https://www.isoc.org/inet2000/cdproceedings/8d/8d_4.htm

[46] M.A. El-Nawawy, "Profiling Internet Users in Egypt: Understanding the Primary Deterrent Against Their Growth in Number," Paper to INET 2000, https://www.isoc.org/inet2000/cdproceedings/8d/8d_3.htm

[47] M. Kibati, "What is the Optimal Technological and Investment Path to 'Universal' Wireless Local Loop Deployment in Developing Countries?" Paper to INET 1999, https://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/inet/99/proceedings/1c/1c_2.htm

[48] C. Onime et al., "The Evolution of OAUNET: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa," Paper to INET 1999, https://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/inet/99/proceedings/3f/3f_1.htm

[49] S. Kyabwe and R. Kibombo, "Buwama and Nabweru Multipurpose Community Telecentres: Baseline Surveys in Uganda," https://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/text/22_Buw.html

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[52] Al-Hajhamad, "Sudan: Proxy Government Monopoly Impedes Growth," News Update 24, https://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/back/balancing-act24.html

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Peter Limb