Africa

A round-up of some of the issues that got an airing during Open Access (OA) Week and in the days that followed, including more rumination on the implementation and implications of the RCUK OA policy, more bad (and some good) publisher behaviour, ideas for new directions in OA publishing and, finally, an important African perspective on the rumbling debate. Read More »

In 2011, Ethiopia reported having 29,550 nurses and 2,416 midwives1, or approximately one nurse for every 3,000 people and one midwife for every 34,000 people. In response to this shortage, the Government of Ethiopia has developed an ambitious plan to significantly increase the number of nurses and midwives in the country by 2015 [...]. Read More »

Traditional health care is a hands-on, brick-and-mortar affair. But across the developing world, a wave of technology-driven innovation signals the emergence of a compelling new model. Read More »

[...] With just a mobile phone and a registration with Safaricom, Kenya’s mobile service giant, you can pay for anything in seconds – no cash, no long journeys to towns to reach a bank, and no long lines when you get there. This is m-Pesa, the revolutionary approach to banking which is changing economies across Africa. Read More »

When Jana co-founder Nathan Eagle needed to connect to a cell carrier in the developing world, he’d come to meetings with a duffel bag full of cash and say that he wanted to buy airtime. For carriers who were taking on more customers than ever, but struggling with declining revenue per user, it was an irresistible sales pitch. The result, two years later, is that Jana is now the largest payment platform in the world. Read More »

There is currently a sea change in the East African governance landscape and you only need to go back to just over a year ago – to Kenya – to understand this. On 8 July 2011, President Mwai Kibaki launched the Kenya Open Data Initiative (KODI), making Kenya the first developing country to have an open government data portal, and second only to Morocco on the African continent. Those who crafted KODI did not mince their words. They wanted to see Kenya take steps to improve governance, and they saw availability and access to data and vital development information as one way of achieving this.
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In the first of a short series of posts, Anne Radl reflects on the Getting in the Access Loop webinar run last month by the Humanitarian Centre, HIFA2015 and PLoS. Read More »