In Feature Articles by Porter Anderson June 16, 2022 Leave a Comment

The IPA and Dubai Cares Africa Publishing Innovation Fund names its new grants and outlines coming engagement in accessible publishing.

Masai tribesmen on the plain at Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya near which one of the projects newly funded by the Africa Publishing Innovation Fund, OliveSeed, works to create educational resource centers and educational programming. Image – Getty iStockphoto: Fernando Quevedo

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

And this is a chance to see a seminal grant-awarding body growing into its own—evolving its response to needs and applications for assistance as its leadership’s analysis brings issues into better focus.

Like a person’s deepening understanding of the world, a nonprofit service operation like the Africa Publishing Innovation Fund gains traction and clarity for its mission by developing a clearer concept of where its action can have the most beneficial effect. Over time, its work becomes better targeted.

On the sidelines of the Sharjah International Book Fair last autumn, the fund held stakeholder discussions at Sharjah’s House of Wisdom to look for ways to enhance the impact of the program’s work. Those talks have had their effect on the program’s work going forward and we can see some reflection of those conversations in today’s announcement, referencing not only African publishing being “steeply tilted toward textbooks” but a need to look at accessibility concerns for readers who struggle with impairments.

As you’ll remember, Bodour Al Qasimi, now president of the International Publishers Association (IPA), originally led the formation of the fund in May 2019 in association with Tariq Al Gurg, CEO of the philanthropic program Dubai Cares. The program is designed to operate for four years with an endowment of US$800,000. This is its third annual disbursement of grants.

The fund is administered by the International Publishers Association, and in its 2021 grants cycle last year awarded five grants to projects chosen from a submission pool of 311 applications based in 26 African nations.

Once again, the total being distributed in this tranche of grants is US$200,000, and those receiving grants are selected by the committee from applications that arrived from 18 African countries. The committee itself comprises publishers from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia.

In a prepared comment on today’s announcement, Al Qasimi is quoted, saying, “Since 2019, the Africa  Publishing  Innovation  Fund has been honored to breathe life into projects that bring solutions to numerous challenges linked to books and reading.

“As part of Dubai Cares’ support this year, we are directing fund financing toward reading for pleasure and accessibility, both being priorities with the power to unlock the literary landscape to everyone, regardless of level of education or ability.”

And at Dubai Cares, Al Gurg says, “Reading is one of the most important skills children and youths can acquire, as it opens doors to a whole new world of knowledge, wisdom and learning.

“Our support to the Africa  Publishing  Innovation  Fund  in 2022, through our partnership with the International Publishers Association, enables us to promote a love of reading among visually impaired young readers and provide access to books for disadvantaged children and young people.

“We are very proud of our partnership with IPA, which has helped place inclusivity at the core of their global agenda and the launch of this program has served as an extension of IPA’s leading role in reviving the culture of reading in the world.”

As the fund says today, then, “The five initiatives that will receive Africa Publishing Innovation Fund” grants this year have been chosen “to spark a love of reading among millions of young Africans.”

Below is a list of the five beneficiaries announced today, with supplemental notes about the projects the fund has awarded for support.

Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), Pan-Africa

Book Aid International, Uganda and Zimbabwe

Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (PRAESA), South Africa

In the IPA’s discussion around today’s announcement, we again hear the point being made that “African publishing is steeply tilted toward textbooks–up to 90 percent of sales in some markets–where consumers typically associate reading with education, and not recreation. The closure of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the impact on government purchasing of textbooks, exposed the vulnerability of the publishing sector in African markets.”

This is the organization’s clearest formulation yet of a concern described for us here at Publishing Perspectives in July 2019 by Cassava Republic Press co-founder Bibi Bakare-Yusuf following a Nairobi event with PublisHer event. Bakare-Yusuf described in those comments the domination of many African markets’ publishing business by men because financial gain was greater in educational publishing.

“The fact that men are not as well represented in the trade is only a matter of time,” she said. “They’re waiting for women to pave the road and show them the financial potential before they wean themselves off the very lucrative government contracts. And watch them try to take over, with try as the watchword.”

In terms of its impact on readership, as reflected in the Africa Publishing Innovation Fund’s grant decisions is that reading as a life-habit—for pleasure and information and perspective—can be hampered when the overhang of educational publishing becomes so heavy that a population comes to understand literature and reading only in terms of pedagogical functions.

In addition to the fund’s interest in reading’s place in the lives of beneficiaries of its funding, it has announced today that in the latter half of this year, it will work with the DAISY Consortium “to facilitate and fund  the production of accessible works in multiple African markets.

“This final iteration of the Africa Publishing Innovation Fund project will give rise to a new canon of accessible works that will reach blind, visually impaired, and otherwise print disabled African readers. The accessible books produced will have the potential to serve the literary needs of thousands of children, especially those belonging to underserved linguistic minorities.”

Information on this new element of the fund’s focus is to be made public in coming weeks.

More this week on accessible publishing comes from Italy, where the  Association of Italian Publishers (Associazione Italiana Editori, AIE) is participating in a conference on Monday (June 20) with Fondazione LIA, focusing on accessibility issues in study materials and texts for university students. Our story is here.

This is Publishing Perspectives’ 110th awards-related report produced in the 112 publication days since our 2022 operations began on January 3.

More from Publishing Perspectives on publishing in Africa is here, more on the International Publishers Association is here, and more on the Africa Publishing Innovation Fund is here.

Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s global media partner.

More from us on the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international book publishing is here.

Porter Anderson is a non-resident fellow of Trends Research & Advisory, and he has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.

Tags: Accessibility, Africa, Africa Publishing Innovation Fund, Bodour Al Qasimi, Book Prize, Coronavirus, COVID-19, DAISY, Dubai Cares, International Publishers Association, Reading, Reading Habits, Tarik Al Gurg

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