The African Journal Partnership Program (AJPP) aims to strengthen the ability of African journal editors to disseminate scientific findings more broadly, and expand their reach to a growing array of stakeholders, giving African medical research a much needed worldwide platform to enable people all over the world to access and engage with research across the African continent. Fogarty's Center for Global Health Studies (CGHS) participates in AJPP’s annual meetings and activities.
Through AJPP, several African journals collaborate with journal partners from the U.S. and U.K. to identify the needs of African journals, facilitate sustainability, and promote learning and research dissemination. An overarching goal of the partnership is to have the African journals accepted into MEDLINE to make African research available to the world.
Results
During the course of the AJPP, the African journals have made major strides toward increased accessibility, including website establishment, automated peer review submission processes, and obtainability in MEDLINE, Web of Science and Scopus.
During the 2014 AJPP Annual Meeting, journal editors formed a working group to spearhead a web-based toolkit to facilitate dissemination. The working group consisted of members from Malawi Medical Journal, Council of Science Editors, National Library of Medicine, Ethiopian Journal of Health Sciences, EHP, Kaufman Wills Fusting and Company, Fogarty’s CGHS, Global Health Information Consultancy, Mali Medical and African Health Sciences.
Led by CGHS, the group identified audiences of importance to the editors, chose references for modes and strategies of dissemination, and organized the references by mode and audience. Resources for the toolkit were developed and provided to the African journal editors in June 2015. These resources aim to help editors to plan dissemination strategies, target audiences and utilize relevant approaches to effectively reach key stakeholders.
Background
The AJPP was founded in 2004, with journals from the U.S. and U.K. providing mentorship and training to African journals. Four journal pairings began in 2004; two additional pairings were made in 2008; and in 2013 two African journals joined two of the 2004 pairings to make triads. Current groupings include:
- African Health Sciences and Rwanda Journal Series F: Medicine and Health Sciences with BMJ
- Ethiopian Journal of Health Sciences and Annals of African Surgery with the Annals of Internal Medicine
- Ghana Medical Journal and Sierra Leone Journal of Medicine with The Lancet
- Malawi Medical Journal with Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
- Mali Medical and Annales Africaines de Médecine with Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) and New England Journal of Medicine
- Medical Journal of Zambia with the New England Journal of Medicine
Founding members also included the National Library of Medicine and Fogarty.
Partners
- National Library of Medicine (NLM)
- Council of Science Editors
Updated March 2016