Results of projects advancing no-fee OA journals in Africa
Results of two more projects aiming to strengthen the quality and sustainability of no-fee open access publishing in Africa

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Posted: October 27, 2026

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

The projects are among 33 in nine countries that were awarded grants in 2024 and 2025 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. 

African Journal on Conflict Resolution

The African Journal on Conflict Resolution (AJCR) is the flagship journal of the South Africa-based non-profit organization, African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD). In September 2025 EIFL awarded ACCORD a grant for a 12-month project to enhance AJCR’s plagiarism and AI-content detection processes and policies; to build the capacity of journal editors, and to increase the visibility and discoverability of the journal. 

The AJCR team incorporated the plagiarism and AI-generated content detection software, iThenticate, into its editorial workflow; updated the journal’s plagiarism policy and developed a new policy governing acceptable use of AI tools in manuscript preparation. Together, the use of iThenticate and the policies have strengthened manuscript screening, enabling more efficient handling of submissions and faster communication of decisions to authors.

The project improved visibility and discoverability of AJCR through hosting on Khulisa Journals, a federated journal management platform using  Open Journal Systems (OJS) open source software, managed by the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf). Usage statistics (views) recorded by OJS indicated substantially increased visibility and discoverability of the journal during the project period.

Read more about new developments at the African Journal on Conflict Resolution (AJCR).

The Journal of Agricultural and Biomedical Sciences 

The Journal of Agricultural and Biomedical Sciences (JABS) is a multidisciplinary no-fee (Diamond) OA journal that publishes research in the natural sciences, medicine, health sciences and agriculture. JABS is one of 15 University of Zambia (UNZA) journals hosted on the university’s OJS journal management and publishing platform. In 2024 EIFL awarded UNZA a grant for a project (October 2024 to August 2026) that has led to enhancement of journal policies, operations and quality. 

The recruitment of two Editorial Support Assistants who have taken over key editorial tasks (including management of the OJS publishing software), freed up the Chief and Deputy Editors to focus on other tasks. 

The Editorial Board and team enhanced journal policies (on Copyright, Content Updates, Correction and Retraction, Self-Archiving, Complaints and Appeals, Research Data, and Plagiarism), using templates provided by EIFL. Professionally designed MS Word and LaTeX templates have improved the visual quality and consistency of articles published in JABS.

The JABS Editorial Board and editorial team also reviewed and validated the JABS operational guidelines, a process that fed into the development of a new ‘Operations and Maintenance Manual for University of Zambia Affiliated Journals’. 

“All 15 journals published by UNZA benefited from the project, starting from changes implemented on the OJS platform, to training, to the development of the Operations and Maintenance Manual for UNZA affiliated journals,” said Prof Erastus Mwanaumo, Directorate of Research and Development at UNZA.

Read more about new developments at Journal of Agricultural and Biomedical Sciences.

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

See the results of 13 more projects, shared previously, to strengthen OA journals in Africa.

Ethiopia: 

Ghana: 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 

Kenya:

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. 

Open Access Programme
Multiple Countries