The African Journal of Information Systems

Information Systems Research for Africa: A Renewed Focus

Going to primary and secondary schools in Sub-Saharan Africa, we were taught common songs such as “London Bridge is Falling Down.” As kids we thoroughly enjoyed the songs but never knew or even cared to understand why we were singing those songs about a bridge thousands of miles away from us and in a country we (at the time) never knew anything about. Neither did we ever think about going to visit the famous London Bridge. Of course, our primary and secondary schools teachers had little choice but to teach these songs as they were part of the books used for our classes, most of which were published in England or some other Western nation. These great teachers at the time (and even today) had little or no incentive to write books (and songs) about the great rivers and local bridges in our countries, which we could relate to. Unfortunately, even today, these long time experiences have translated to most African universities depending almost entirely on research published in Western journals and because of the same reasons - viz lack of resources and incentives to publish work specifically focused on the realities of countries within the African region.

The purpose of this editorial is not to point fingers at any particular entity or play the blame game that is reminiscent of news media outlets. However, we want to address the issue of Africa creating its own identity in terms of developing a knowledge base pertaining to Information and Communication Technologies in general and select information systems in particular. Yes, we do understand there is no common African identity but there are some socio-economic and political characteristics common to most African countries. These characteristics have affected the way Africa acquires and adopts ICTs.

Without a doubt there has been a plethora of publications that have shown that the growth of ICTs in Africa has been exponential. In fact, wireless phone growth rates in Africa are the highest of all regions of the world. Similarly, growth of other ICTs such as computers and related accessories has been exponential. However, growth in related applications of these ICTs has been slow. For example, the diffusion of ICT applications such as those used for distance learning (Tele-Education) or such as those used for delivery of healthcare at a distance (Tele-Medicine) has been marginal. Notwithstanding, almost all economic sectors in Africa have adopted some level of ICT services and some of the (financially) richest people in the continent have built their wealth through ICTs.