“Currently, according to Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL), there are 255 existing Open Access repositories in Africa. To address a project of federating Open Access repositories across the multiple African regions in which they operate, the identification of key capabilities and training needs for African HEI librarians is needed.The survey aimed to produce a rounded picture of how higher education sector librarians view the enabling and constraining factors of their practice as information resource managers especially regarding the development, implementation and maintenance of Open Access Repositories….

Regarding the existence of a national policy on the management of research outputs, only 32% of the sample confirm that their respective countries have such a policy in place. As many as 45% say they do not have any such thing. As a reality check we compared these results against statistics from the Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP1) and found that similarly, two types of policy seemed to exist in African countries (one related to institutions and one related to funders) and the incidence of the latter was non existent in eastern African countries and not too signficant in southern African countries. 

Meanwhile, a significant 23% are also ignorant about the existence of a national policy, exposing the gaps in advocacy, particularly for countries which have such policies….

Drawing from the above, unsurprisingly, the survey records a low incidence on the existence of national open access repositories – only 20% of respondents say they have national repositories in their countries. 64% do not have OARs and some 16% are ignorant about the existence of such in their countries….

The general consensus on the insufficiency of funding for the management of digital information resources is quite disturbing (see figure 12). Expectations on the efficiencyand availability of information resources is likely to be low if as many as 84% say that funding is inadequate…”