Results of projects advancing no-fee OA journals in Africa

Posted: August 24, 2026

We’ve received reports from three more projects aiming to strengthen the quality and sustainability of African no-fee open access (OA) publishing, and we are happy to share results about journals based in Ethiopia and Kenya.

The projects are among 17 in nine countries that were awarded grants in 2024 through the three-year ‘Collaboration for Sustainable Open Access Publishing in Africa' project, funded by Welcome. The grants specifically target no-fee OA (Diamond OA) journals and journal platforms. Diamond OA means that the journals do not charge any fees for publishing or reading articles.

Addis Ababa University journals

Addis Ababa University (AAU) implemented a year-long project aiming to improve the visibility of and strengthen two no-fee open access journals hosted by the national open-access publishing platform, Ethiopian Journals Online (EJOL), which is managed by AAU Library:

The Ethiopian Journal of Education (EJE), which publishes articles that address key issues in teaching, learning, curriculum development, teacher education, and educational leadership, with a special emphasis on contexts relevant to Ethiopia and Africa.
The Ethiopian Journal of the Social Sciences and Humanities (EJOSSAH), the official journal of the College of Social Sciences at AAU. The journal publishes and promotes original research on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

At the request of the AAU Research Office, three more Diamond OA journals were added during the course of the project: ZEDE Journal of Ethiopian Engineers and Architects, Ethiopian Journal of Behavioral Studies and the Ethiopian Journal of Development Research.

Through the project, editorial policies, author guidelines and journal websites were improved. The project also built the capacity of 30 journal editors and peer reviewers to use the EJOL platform efficiently for managing journals and peer review. Three of the journals (EJE, the EJOSSAH and the Ethiopian Journal of Behavioral Studies) applied - successfully - for indexing in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), improving their visibility.

Journal of the Kenya Association of Physicians

The Journal of the Kenya Association of Physicians (JOKAP) is a peer-reviewed, no-fee open access medical journal dedicated to advancing clinical medicine, public health and medical research in Africa and beyond. JOKAP was established in 2018 as the official journal of the Kenya Association of Physicians, which has 500 members. It was later adopted as the official journal of the East Central and Southern African College of Physicians (ECSACOP), which includes membership from Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In partnership with the East and Central African Journal of Surgery (ECAJS), JOKAP designed and delivered an author training workshop comprising 22 sessions over a period of three months to equip students, postgraduates, and early-career researchers from across sub-Saharan Africa in health and related fields with practical tools for impactful research and publishing. The workshop, which attracted 960 participants, strengthened authorship capacity, improving submission quality and compliance with publication ethics.

A recruitment drive during the 2025 East, Central and Southern Africa College of Physicians Scientific Conference added 72 new names to JOKAP’s database of peer reviewers. The new reviewers received training in the basic principles of peer review.

In addition, the project helped the journal team to fully operationalize the Open Journal Systems (OJS) journal management and publishing platform, streamlining manuscript submission, peer review, and editorial decision-making, significantly reducing turnaround times.

Read more about new developments at JOKAP.

Regional Journal of Information and Knowledge Management

The Regional Journal of Information and Knowledge Management (RJIKM) is a peer-reviewed no-fee open access scholarly journal that is published biannually by the Regional Institute of Information and Knowledge Management in Kenya. Launched in 2016, the RJKM offers an authoritative platform for information and knowledge management professionals and scholars in Africa and beyond to engage, share, and learn through the publishing of quality original research.

The project enabled the RJKIM to migrate its legacy website to an OJS journal management and publishing platform. All manuscript processing tasks, previously managed by email, including interaction with authors and peer reviewers; editing; DOI registration, and publication are now fully automated.

To further strengthen and streamline journal processing, the journal team created a workflow to organize the operations and assign roles and responsibilities to different team members.

In addition, journal policies were revised and enhanced and the editorial board was expanded by 14 members to reflect a broader and more internationally diverse professional and geographic composition.

Read more about new developments at the RJIKM.

More projects to strengthen no-fee OA journals in Africa.

See the results of 10 more projects, shared previously, to strengthen OA journals in Africa.

Ghana: Five journals hosted by the University of Ghana Journal Management Services: Contemporary Journal of African Studies; Ghana Journal of Geography; Ghana Journal of Religion and Theology; Health Sciences Investigations Journal, and Science and Development Journal.

Ethiopia: Bahir Dar Journal of Education

Mozambique: Revista Científica da UEM: Série Letras e Ciências Sociais

Nigeria: Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy (JSDLP)

South Africa:

We look forward to sharing more project results as the reports come in.