Welcome to AfricArXiv
This initiative showcases UbuntuNet's commitment to fostering knowledge sharing, collaboration, and accessibility within the African research community. With AfricArxiv, researchers across the continent have a dedicated platform to disseminate their findings, making them accessible to a global audience. By facilitating open access to scholarly work, UbuntuNet Alliance plays a pivotal role in advancing the principles of open science, enhancing research visibility, and driving innovation across Africa.
Communities in AfricArxiv
Select a community to browse its collections.
- The general repository is open for individual submissions by researchers, librarians and research administrators.
- Showcase of project activities, presentations, and scholarly contributions curated by the AfricArXiv initiative.
- A Rapid Grant Fund to address research questions and implement science engagement activities associated with COVID-19
- An initiative to support the development of a harmonised quality assurance and accreditation system at institutional, national, regional and Pan-African continental level.
- Facilitating knowledge sharing and collaboration among institutions, researchers, and educators within the Ubuntunet Alliance network.
Recent Submissions
Petition for the dissolution of the United Nations and the prosecution of certain personalities and their associates for the crime of genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(2024-10-21) Rutazibwa, Privat
The main message of this unusually long 124-page petition is found in the nine "Recommended actions to world leaders" in section two of the document. They include, among others, that 'Congolese President Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo be apprehended and tried for the crime of genocide', and 'to disband the United Nations for its military support of a genocidal regime and militias in DRC'.
This is a petition from a single individual. Its strength does not lie in a multitude of signatures, but in in-depth research, precise references and deliberately long quotations. Indeed, we believe that the world leaders it is addressing do not have the time to read the archives or conduct in-depth research on the conflict in eastern DRC. Moreover, the two reports of the ”Group of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo” created by the UN in 2000; the “Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003” released in August 2010; as well as the 41 reports produced between July 2004 and June 2024 by the “UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo” established by resolution 1533 (2004) of 12 March 2004 have not provided world leaders with credible information on the subject. Instead, they clearly embraced and promoted the conspiracy theories of racist anti-Tutsi ideology, as this petition shows. The activism linked to this racist ideology even pushed at least two of the former coordinators of this UN Group of Experts (GoE) to take part in the conspiracy which aimed to 'weaken the CNDP role and influence in the army', pushing for the creation of the rebellion of the M23. A report from this UN GoE had already complained about ‘the expanding and disproportionate power that ex-CNDP commanders and units held within the FARDC-led Amani Leo operations for the Kivus’. One of the actions recommended by this petition aims to prosecute these UN experts and their accomplices 'who sparked the conflict in eastern DRC in 2012 and who continue to fuel it with their false and racist narrative'.
The author of this petition is a researcher; not an activist. In 1990, he was ordained as a Catholic priest of the diocese of Goma in North Kivu in the DRC by Pope John Paul II in Kabgayi in Rwanda. In 1992, he renounced the priesthood and joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in the maquis of Byumba, in northern Rwanda, where the movement had launched its liberation struggle two years earlier. He obtained his laicization from Pope Francis in 2017. Since 1993, he has researched, published and spoken in the media about Rwanda and the African Great Lakes region, mainly to denounce and combat the racist and genocidal ideology responsible for violence and instability. Thanks to a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), he has been conducting research at Humboldt University since 2022 on colonial racialism and its consequences in Rwanda and the Great Lakes region of Africa. The images of extreme violence in the first subsection of this petition are not clashes between rival African tribes as presented by Western media and so-called researchers. They are the consequence of this ideology coming from the West and implemented in a radical way in Rwanda - before spreading to the entire region - by the Belgian colonial administration and the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers), during the first genocide against the Tutsi from 1959 as this is shown by unpublished documents cited in this petition. Denouncing this genocidal ideology and showing support for the political organizations that fight it like the RPF in Rwanda in the 1990s and the M23 today in the DRC is not showing partiality. It is a service of truth and righteousness consistent with faith in Jesus Christ. Claiming neutrality or defending the status quo, whether out of conviction, fear, interest, intellectual laziness or indifference, amounts to condoning the crime. The author applies a decolonial and interpretivist approach which allows him to carry out rigorous research, with his positionality.
Exploring the implementation of the TIME Home Learning programme and learning trajectories of 5- to 7-year-olds. Implementing TIME at home: Insights from caregivers
(Wordworks, 2024) von Blottnitz, Magali
This is the fourth in a series of learning briefs that explore the implementation of the TIME Home Learning programme and learning trajectories of 5- to 7-year-olds. This brief is based on interviews, home visits and observations made between February 2022 and August 2023 with participating families of children who were in Grade R in 2022 and in Grade 1 in 2023. It focuses on the home circumstances of families and their lived experiences while engaging with the TIME programme. This brief seeks to address the following questions:
• How does the diversity of families and homes challenge our mental representations of “family” and “home”?
• What does it take to embed the practice of TIME in the routine of the home?
• What can we learn from caregivers’ experiences with TIME at home, which could help improve the frequency and the quality of families’ engagement?
Reviewing the stories of a few families under a dynamic lens, the brief discusses how home circumstances such as family configurations, poverty, working hours, multilingualism, influence the levels of caregiver engagement with the TIME programme, and draws a typology of caregiver engagement.
Exploring the implementation of the TIME Home Learning programme and learning trajectories of 5- to 7-year-olds The TIME programme in its ecosystem: What does it take for a school to commit to TIME?
(Wordworks, 2024) von Blottnitz, Magali
This is the third in a series of learning briefs that explore the implementation of the TIME Home Learning programme and learning trajectories of 5- to 7-year-olds. This brief is based on interviews held in 2022 with stakeholders from Western Cape schools. It focuses on schools’ commitment to TIME, a programme that is offered on a sign-up and co-payment basis. The brief unpacks the factors influencing schools’ decision to either register for the programme, or turn it down, including strategic priorities, past experiences and financial constraints. As such, the brief offers interesting insights for NGOs about opportunities and pitfalls of co-payment models.
ብኣምሓርኛ ፣ ትግርኛን ኦሮምኛን፣ ንዊኪፔድያ ኣብ ምብርካት ዘጋጥማ ብድሆታት ምርዳእ
(2024) Nigatu, Hellina Hailu; Canny, John; Achame, Berhane; Chasins, Sarah
ንዊኪፔድያ ኣበርከቲ ዝኾኑ ሰባት ዝገጥሞም ብድሆታት ንምርዳእ፣ ብዙሕ መረዳእታ ኣብዘይብለን ቋንቋታት፣ ብመንፅር በዝሒ፣ ዓይነትን ዝምድናን፣ (1) ካብ መድረኻት ምይይጥ ዊኪፔድያ ሓበሬታ ዝተንተናሉ፣ (2)14 ተሳተፍቲ ብቋንቋታት ትግርኛ፣ ኦሮምኛ ወይ ከኣ ኣምሓርኛ ዓንቀፃት ክፅሕፉ ዝፈተኑሉ ብምርኣይ መፅናዕቲ ኣካይድና። ብመሰረት ውፅኢት እቲ መፅናዕትና፣ ንኹሉ ዝሓውስ ቴክኖሎጂታት ቋንቋ ንምስራሕ ለበዋታት ነቕርብ። ኣብዚ ፅሑፍ እዚ፣ ኣብ ታሕቲ ክርከብ ዝኽእል፣ ናብ ሕትመት ካብዝበቕዐ ናይ ውፀኢትና ጥሙር ሓሳብ ነቕርብ።
Understanding Challenges in Contributing to Wikipedia in Amharic, Tigrinya, and Afan Oromo.
(2024) Nigatu, Hellina Hailu; Canny, John; Chasins, Sarah
Online Knowledge Repositories (OKRs) like Wikipedia offer communities a way to share and preserve information about themselves and their ways of living. However, for communities with low-resourced languages—including most African communities—the quality and volume of content available are often inadequate. One reason for this lack of adequate content could be that many OKRs embody Western ways of knowledge preservation and sharing, requiring many low-resourced language communities to adapt to new interactions. To understand the challenges faced by low-resourced language contributors on the popular OKR Wikipedia, we conducted (1) a thematic analysis of Wikipedia forum discussions and (2) a contextual inquiry study with 14 novice contributors. We focused on three Ethiopian languages: Afan Oromo, Amharic, and Tigrinya. Our analysis revealed several recurring themes; for example, contributors struggle to find resources to corroborate their articles in low-resourced languages, and language technology support, like translation systems and spellcheck, result in several errors that waste contributors’ time. We hope our study will support designers in making online knowledge repositories accessible to low-resourced language speakers.