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Examines the characteristics of rejected manuscripts submitted to the "African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science." Most of the papers were rejected because they contributed nothing new to knowledge (65.5%), used unreliable data (13.1%) and lacked focus (13.1%). There were no remarkable differences with regard to status and affiliations between authors of rejected and accepted papers. (Author/AEF)

Whilst learning analytics is still nascent in most African higher education institutions, many African higher education institutions use learning platforms and analytic services from providers "outside" of the African continent. A critical consideration of the protection of data privacy on the African continent and its implications for learning analytics in African higher education is therefore needed. In this paper, we map the current state of legal and regulatory environments and frameworks on privacy to establish their implications for learning analytics. This scoping review of privacy regulations in 32 African countries, complemented by 15 scholarly papers, revealed that there are numerous national and regional legislation and regulatory frameworks, providing clear pointers pertaining to (student) data privacy to governments, higher education institutions and researchers. As such, the findings of this research have implications for African higher education to ensure not only legal compliance but also to oversee and safeguard student data privacy as part of their fiduciary duty. This research provides crucial insights regarding the importance of context for thinking about the expansion and institutional adoption of learning analytics.

New tools are being explored to provide collective and participatory means of governing data to promote the management of data in ways that benefit those from whom data is collected. This paper discusses whether data trusts are feasible structures in an African context by outlining specific considerations that should be prioritised in the development of bottom-up and collective models of data governance on the continent. Making use of international instruments, principles and established values like Ubuntu, the paper analyses the importance of collective decision-making through collective and participatory governance, women's empowerment, and capacity-building, and how the alignment of data trusts to African contexts could help balance historical power differentials, and emphasise heterogeneity as the starting point of all discussions in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of digital agriculture, Precision agriculture (PA) data sources are diverse in terms of the range of technology options and the type of data they generate. Government institutions, scientists, and the private sectors generate much of the PA data at the innovation, validation, and dissemination phases. At scale-up phases, farmers also generate tremendous amounts of data that might have privacy and ownership concerns. There remains the possibility of a better way to integrate PA data continent-wide in Africa. Data privacy and ownership issues must be addressed while still maintaining the integration of PA data at scale. The objective of this paper is to review the major challenges of PA data harmonization in Africa and discuss the existing opportunities in relation to technological advancements in PA data applications to address data sharing without compromising data privacy, ownership, and stewardship. Finally, a new PA data sharing and reward model—'PrecisioNexion' is proposed to rationalize data network systems by establishing a robust and self-sustaining business model. The model uses AI and blockchain technology to track and stamp PA data using unique dataset_IDs or PrecisionPrint (like a fingerprint), determining credit amounts using 'pVouchers' (like eVouchers) and distributing credits between PA data owners or 'PrecisionProprietor', data clients or 'PrecisionClient' and funders or 'PrecisionPatron'. The proposed system provides a foundation for win–win–win PA data sharing and self-sustaining business models for data owners, technology solutions providers and funders, while ensuring a strong partnership between farmers' cooperatives, private sector, scientists, governments, and financial institutions, and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper underscores the need for detailed data on health and disaster risks for sub-Saharan African cities, particularly for their informal settlements. Systems that should contribute to the information base on health and health risks in each locality are rarely functional. In most cities, there is a lack of data on health risks, health outcomes, and health determinants; where data are available, they are usually too aggregated to be useful to urban governments. Such data shortfalls likely hide the scale of premature death, serious illness, and injury in informal settlements; limited data can also curtail the identification of particularly vulnerable urban residents. After outlining data shortfalls, this paper considers two sources of data that can help fill data gaps on health and health determinants. The first is from city case studies undertaken within a research programme called Urban Africa: Risk Knowledge (Urban-ARK). Urban-ARK's findings reveal the large spectrum of health risks in informal settlements, ranging from 'everyday' risks (e.g. infectious and parasitic diseases) to small- and larger-scale disasters. The second is from data collected by slum/shack dweller federations, which offer qualitative and quantitative findings on health, disasters, and other health determinants in informal settlements. Our conclusion reflects upon the need for additional data on multiple risks to advance urban health and well-being and support the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It also highlights the need to strengthen accountable urban governance in sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) were adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015 for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3) is 'Better health and well-being by 2030'. According to WHO, good health in the context of SDG3 is assessed with respect to the level and distribution of individuals' and communities' healthy life, conditions that affect health and well-being and risk factors whose presence would affect health and well-being. The overall aim is that each SDG target is achieved by 2030. In 2018 the WHO used statistical methods to assess the state of health in Africa in the context of SDG3. Their analysis revealed successes and shortfalls towards attaining SDG3. Backed by public health and other activities, statistics play an important role in improving the health and well-being of Africa. This paper explains how statistics can be used to help African countries to attain SDG3, in its role in modeling event histories, diagnosis, evidence-based medicine, determination of risk factors of exposures of morbidity and mortality, determination of risk factors of morbidity and mortality, the computation of the level and distribution of vital events, measuring disease frequency and progress, quantification of life expectancy and monitoring and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data plays a big role in educating the population on various issues that contribute to development. One of the major activities conducted after data collection is, dissemination of the data to different stakeholders. Uganda Bureau of Statistics disseminates data to its users through a number of channels. This paper discusses each method in detail and how it's used during this process. The major channel of sharing data with users is through dissemination workshops and the website. Other channels used for dissemination include the library and resource centre, social media and physical delivery to stakeholders in district public libraries. Having the above-mentioned channels of data dissemination in place, has helped UBOS remain the centre of excellence in dissemination of data to users, countrywide and in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on the collection and use of data by libraries in sixteen countries across Africa. It highlights the challenges that librarians and library organizations face in gathering, analyzing, and presenting data of various types for self-advocacy. In this study, qualitative data from a meeting of library representatives was analyzed to identify main challenges including: data integrity in terms of completeness, accuracy, credibility, and relevancy; infrastructure; capacity; local investment in libraries; time; and participation of data collectors and respondents. Implications for those collecting data on African libraries as well as those supporting the use of data in these contexts are discussed. The purpose of this paper is not to feed into representations of African libraries as chronically under-resourced and lacking in capacity, but rather, to constructively engage with first-hand accounts of how librarians are experiencing and navigating barriers in order to offer potential avenues forward for the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has been in existence for centuries, the rigorous and systematic documentation of the extent of the practice is a recent undertaking. This paper discusses data availability related to the practice of FGM and reviews the methods used to generate prevalence estimates. The aim is to illustrate strengths and limitations of the available data. The review is organised around two main categories of countries: FGM countries of origin, where representative prevalence data exist, and countries of migration for women and girls who have undergone FGM, for which representative prevalence data are lacking. This second category also includes countries across the world where FGM is only found among small autochthonous populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sanitation delivery in the urban areas of sub-Saharan African countries has been a chronic issue, particularly difficult to tackle. Under the Millennium Development Goals, the sanitation target in urban sub-Saharan Africa was missed by a wide margin and witnessed almost no improvement. After 2 years of review, the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme published a new measure of access to sanitation as a baseline for the Sustainable Development Goals. There are a number of improvements in the new measure. However, despite the improvements, the new measure continues to be characterized by an important flaw: it continues to disregard how shared toilet facilities contribute towards the SDG sanitation target. As a result, the new measure does not indicate whether progress is being made in low-income urban areas where a large number of households rely on shared sanitation; nor does it provide a goal that can be achieved in cities of the poorest countries over the measurement period. But, its most egregious failing is that it directs resources towards investments which will often fail cost/benefit tests. In sum, it is not a surprise that a Working Group recommended that the measure should be changed to include some shared facilities. Following the Working Group's recommendation would have avoided the adverse consequences of continued reliance on a key component of the methodology used for monitoring sanitation improvements under the Millennium Development Goals. The paper discusses the limitations of this methodology in the context of urban sub-Saharan Africa, where current sanitation conditions are seriously lacking, and the significant future urban population growth will add more pressure for the delivery of vital sanitation services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trajectory of South African economic development starts in the colonial economies. No systematic data exists on the Gross Domestic Product of the territories that formed the Union of South Africa in 1910. A comprehensive project to reconstruct nineteenth-century Gross Domestic Project (GDP) for the different territories can now report for the first time on actual Cape Colony GDP data. This paper presents the findings of reconstructed Cape Colony GDP according to the SNA. It confirms earlier estimates, refines very tentative projections of Cape Colony GDP during the nineteenth century and offers new insights into the nature and direction of the settler economy in the nineteenth century. It also pioneers data on the Cape Colony GDP and is the first in a series outlining nineteenth-century GDP of the territories that formed the Union of South Africa in 1910. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper explores the challenges for analysis of urbanization which can arise from insufficiently rigorous definition of what is “urban”. Policy makers and investors still use the ideas of “rural” versus “urban” and increasingly assume that the pace of urbanization in African countries is a measure of positive economic structural change. However most urban definitions do not incorporate economic characteristics. In Africa widely differing urban population thresholds and administrative factors are the most common criteria. The thresholds are often so low that many rural settlements are also defined as “urban” or they may be included on population density criteria, meaning the apparent pace of urbanization is inflated unrealistically. These issues are exemplified in this paper through detailed examples drawn from Kenya. It uses a range of sources including official census data and urban data published by Africapolis, as well as aerial images of rural and urban settlements in Kenya. It demonstrates how the use of population density criteria has inflated Kenyan urban data by the incorporation of very large numbers of rural people and explains how this can lead to entirely misleading interpretations of local and national urban and migration trends. Errors in urban figures can therefore have serious policy implications. It is argued that such errors can be reduced by not relying on a single criterion to define “urban” or by triangulating data on rural and urban settlements with other relevant information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violent conflict is the key driver in global food crises. In response, researchers, humanitarians and policy stakeholders have sought to better predict, analyse and respond to food crises in conflict-affected contexts. However, efforts to model conflict's impacts on hunger typically focus on 'conflict' as an aggregate category, rarely distinguishing between violence that directly involves food and food systems from wider insecurity. This study proposes a narrower measure of 'food-related violence (FRV),' in which food and food systems feature in acts of political violence. The study asks: to what extent is FRV a driver of food crises? To answer, it develops a measure of disaggregated food-related violence from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Dataset, then tests the comparative strength of the relationship between FRV and subsequent food crises in 16 Sub-Saharan African contexts, drawing on food security data from the Integrated Food Phase Classification system and Cadre Harmonisé. The analysis finds that FRV is more strongly correlated to subsequent food crisis than either general – or other subcategories of – violent events across the sample, pointing to the distinct profile of this modality of violence. The findings suggest that researchers, policymakers and practitioners seeking to understand and address the conflict–hunger nexus would benefit from integrating a measure of this specific modality of violence, as existing approaches with a broad focus on conflict-driven food crises may obscure the extent to which FRV, specifically, contributes to hunger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of quality data and data management is important for the future of food in Africa. Data management can impact agriculture sector performance and food security because it facilitates the identification of agriculture sector problems and planning. However, existing systems, data collection practices, record keeping and handling are all challenged by a myriad of factors that undermine quantity and quality of data output. This paper discusses how countries can improve and implement data capture, record keeping and investment in data management. Using past literature and data management, we assess the current status of data management systems and challenges faced at the farmer, local/NGO, national and international levels. Drawing on best practices currently at work in the private sector and amongst NGO-supported projects, we identify potential investment opportunities and incentives that could promote a culture of record keeping, documentation, data management. Over time, investing in projects that have built-in incentives that solve farmer needs can facilitate record keeping at the farmer level. Putting in place mechanisms such as central registries and platforms for sharing information and coordinating local initiatives can promote the culture of documentation and data management at the local/NGO level. Improvements at the national level may stem from investing more in human and financial resources, capitalizing on public-private partnerships to develop and deploy innovative digital tools for data collection and management, as well as building stronger linkages and tapping into international capacities of agricultural data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased access to smartphones in Africa and elsewhere in the global south has opened new markets and new areas for surveillance/platform capitalism/data colonialism to operate. This article attends to the socio-technical practices of Transsion, the Chinese maker of Africa's top selling smartphones, and through these showcases how essential hardware are to the global data economy. Working from a mix of data, including translocal fieldwork in Shenzhen, Accra, Addis Ababa, and a close reading of Transsion products and artifacts alongside business practices, the article shows how the company's prioritizing of Black African consumer needs sustains its competitive position and how its constellation of hardware and apps are integral to its success in routine experimentation of artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and other emerging areas of computation. Ultimately, the argument is that consumer hardware such as low-cost smartphones are critical to the datafication of the everyday in the global south via the bundling of surveillant and extractive software and should be considered sites of power within discourses on the platform era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital iterations of African literary texts present scholarly opportunities to interrogate how literature produced and circulated on digital media becomes entangled with the capitalist politics of datafication. In the data paradigm described in the article, literary representations are subject to the workings of neoliberal capital and the constraints of algorithmic systems. Through a postcolonial approach that puts the digital humanities in conversation with African literary studies, the article transcends how digital technologies have evidently changed African literature and tackles the costs of digital literary cultures and networks from Africa. I examine data relations through an African literary culture, which, in the current moment, indisputably exhibits the attainment of new and complex elements including the integration of digital affordances in the production and critical reception of texts. How African literary expressions in a digital age circulate in market-driven digital platforms like Facebook and YouTube makes the subjects of data capitalism or the coloniality of data as important for African literature as the expanded literary networks enabled by the digital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data and methods development are key to improve our ability to forecast conflict. Relatively recent data sources such as mobile phone and social media data or images have received widespread attention in conflict research. Oftentimes these do not cover substantial parts of the globe or they are difficult to obtain and manipulate, which makes regular updating challenging. The sometimes vast amounts of data can also be computationally and financially costly. The data source we propose instead is cheap, readily and openly available, and updated in real time, and it provides global coverage: Wikipedia. We argue that the number of country page views can be considered a measure of interest or salience, whereas the number of page changes can be considered a measure of controversy between competing political views. We expect these predictors to be particularly successful in capturing tensions before a conflict escalates. We test our argument by predicting changes in battle-related deaths in Africa on the country-month level. We find evidence that country page views do increase predictive performance while page changes do not. Contrary to our expectation, our model seems to capture long-term trends better than sharp short-term changes. El desarrollo de datos y métodos es fundamental para perfeccionar nuestra habilidad de previsión de conflictos. Las fuentes de datos relativamente nuevas, tales como los datos o las imágenes de los teléfonos celulares y de las redes sociales, han recibido una atención generalizada en la investigación de conflictos. A menudo, dichas fuentes no cubren las partes primordiales del mundo o son difíciles de obtener y manejar, lo que hace que la actualización periódica sea un desafío. Las cantidades de datos, en ocasiones enormes, también pueden ser costosas desde el punto de vista informático y financiero. En su lugar, la fuente de datos que proponemos es económica, está disponible fácil y públicamente, se actualiza en tiempo real y proporciona una cobertura global: Wikipedia. Planteamos que la cantidad de páginas vistas por país puede considerarse una medida de interés o prominencia, mientras que el número de cambios de página puede considerarse una medida de controversia entre las opiniones políticas rivales. Esperamos que estos indicadores tengan especial éxito a la hora de captar las tensiones antes de que el conflicto se intensifique. Ponemos a prueba nuestro argumento prediciendo cambios en las muertes relacionadas con las batallas en África a nivel mensual y por país. Encontramos pruebas de que esas páginas vistas por país aumentan el rendimiento predictivo, mientras que los cambios de página no lo hacen. Al contrario de lo que esperábamos, nuestro modelo parece registrar mejor las tendencias a largo plazo que los cambios bruscos a corto plazo. Les données et le développement des méthodes sont essentiels à l'amélioration de notre capacité à prévoir les conflits. La recherche sur les conflits a étudié avec application des sources de données relativement récentes, telles que celles fournies par les téléphones portables ou les médias sociaux. Néanmoins, dans de nombreux cas, les données obtenues n'englobent pas l'ensemble de la planète. Elles sont parfois difficiles à obtenir et sont délicates à manipuler, ce qui rend difficile toute mise à jour régulière. En outre, du fait de leur quantité, l'analyse de ces données peut être chronophage et coûteuse. Au contraire, la source de données que nous proposons est bon marché, publique et immédiatement disponible, mise à jour en temps réel, et inclut l'ensemble de la planète : Wikipédia. Nous soutenons que le nombre de pages vues par pays permet de mesurer l'intérêt ou l'importance d'un sujet, tandis que le nombre de changements apportés aux pages permet de mesurer le niveau de controverses entre des opinions politiques concurrentes. Nous estimons que ces éléments permettent d'identifier avec succès des tensions avant qu'un conflit n'éclate. Nous vérifions la justesse de nos hypothèses en prédisant des changements en ce qui concerne le nombre de victimes dans des combats en Afrique, par pays et par mois. Nous apportons la preuve que le nombre de pages vues par pays a une valeur prédictive, mais que le nombre de changements apportés aux pages n'en a pas. Contrairement à nos attentes, notre modèle semble permettre d'identifier des tendances de long terme, et non des changements soudains de court terme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Events data have been instrumental in the study of contentious politics. Yet such data often focus on the attributes of the events themselves – such as the number of participants, fatalities, and location – while providing scant information on those involved. To address this shortcoming, we introduce the Social Conflict Analysis Database – Organizational Properties (SCAD-OPs). This dataset categorizes the organizations and identity groups involved in the original SCAD, which allows analysts to answer important questions about who is involved in social conflict. Named entities are assigned to seventeen domains, or primary functional areas, including government, labor, criminal, activist, and so on. Individuals and groups that have a coherent identity – enabling researchers to track their activities over time – are assigned unique organizational codes, and factions within organizations are also identified. Presenting data from seven countries, we provide descriptive statistics on the types of entities most likely to be principal SCAD actors and targets across countries, as well as a preliminary analysis, linking participants with event types. We assess which domains are most likely to engage in peaceful protests, violent riots, strikes, and armed attacks. Finally, we discuss potential questions that can be addressed using this data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keeping livestock overnight on fallow arable lands (Corralling) is a traditional method of soil fertility amendment in West Africa. However, there is limited quantitative data on the interaction effects of stocking density of sheep and goats corralling (SDSG), maize plant density (MPD) and nitrogen fertilizer rate (NFR) on soil quality and yield of maize. A 2-yr study was conducted to determine the interaction effects of three SDSG (0, 70, and 140 head ha-1), three MPD (66,667, 100,000, and 133,333 plants ha-1) and three NFR (0, 60, and 90 kg ha-1 N) on soil quality index (SQI) and maize yield in northern Ghana. The study was conducted using a split-split plot experiment replicated on eight farms. An adult sheep or goat was corralled in an area of 4 m² and 1 m² for the 70 and 140 head ha-1 SDSG respectively for five nights during the dry seasons of 2014 and 2015 cropping seasons. Principal component and correlation matrix analysis were used to select minimum data set for SQI. The SQI for sheep and goats corralling increased by 51% compared with the control. The SDSG×MPD, SDSG×NFR and MPD×NFR interactions were significant on maize grain and biomass yields. The results suggest that, small-scale maize-livestock farmers could use either SDSG of 70 head ha-1 with 90 kg ha-1 NFR or SDSG of 140 head ha-1 with 60 kg ha-1 NFR and MPD at 133,333 plants ha-1 to increase grain yield on Ferric lixisols in northern Ghana and similar ecologies in West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports a qualitative study that explored South African conceptions and enactment of life purpose. Data collected using semi-structured interviews with 25 first-year university students (female = 56%, age range = 18–25) offer a unique insight into African young adults’ conceptions of life purpose. From a phenomenological analysis emerged interconnected themes that show these participants’ thoughts about purpose reflect an African worldview: a purposeful life involves ethical living in the present that contributes to one’s family’s and community’s collective future not just one’s own individualistic needs; and purpose is a spiritual endeavor connecting a person to God that lives with and among people. Although these college students gave conceptions of purpose, most had not manifested those purposes into action. Educational implications focus on how universities may have an opportunity to help students find venues to engage their purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]