Challenges
The Global Africa program fits into a context where, more than anywhere else, the challenge of knowledge production is a major issue. The African continent has 13% of the world's population but contributes less than 3% to scientific publications. Even today, if the elite of African researchers publish in international journals, the vast majority remain dependent on national contexts marked by local journals and often unattractive university presses. The higher education crisis in Africa has indeed left the academic community without any viable, credible and efficient means of publishing capable of producing, promoting and disseminating the results of local researchers at the continental and international level, and to develop a level of knowledge essential to include African voices in global debates.
The Global Africa project is designed to respond simultaneously to these many identified challenges. It is indeed a question of encouraging more independent and rigorous research, capable of supplying quality publishing, in the major languages of the continent (English, Arabic, French, Swahili). Strongly backed and supported by the journal of the same name, the project supports young researchers through mentoring, schools of method, support for publication, a more sustained presence in major intellectual scenes.
A major component of the Global Africa program, the Junior Researchers' Institute (JRI) was established to promote the integration of young researchers into scientific communities and thus enable their active participation in the constitution of knowledge that is being built in the world.
The Junior Researchers' Institute is placed under the responsibility of the Laboratory for Studies and Research on Social Dynamics and Local Development (LASDEL), an independent laboratory, with a sub-regional vocation, based in Niamey, with a branch in Parakou in Benin, which ensures its design and implementation with the other partners of Global Africa.
