According to the World Bank (Zambara 2017) perceptions of Africa changed in recent years, from a continent of wars, famines and entrenched poverty to a focus on “Africa rising” and an “African 21st century” averaging 4.5% economic growth. As with all other areas, economic growth directly impacts on research practice on the continent, opening the way towards a possible increase in research funding. When talking about Africa, it is important to keep in mind the vastness of the continent, and the huge disparities that exist in terms of research and other priorities for different African countries.

Open source software and the philosophy to which it subscribes offers great opportunities to publish high quality open access scholarly journals. The use of open source software should be utilized to promote self-empowerment, skills development, capacity building and lifelong self-learning behavior across the African continent. In this presentation, I would like to share past experiences, progress made, and the possible role African Academies of Science can play to encourage the adoption of more open access open source scholarly journal services through our network of Academies of Science and the Association of African Universities.