Africa

Search Engine Colossus and Search Engine Guide are comprehensive global master directories of local search engines for regional, country, or language-specific searches. Yahoo! provides country-specific, regional, and official government site search options. Google offers a comprehensive Language Tools Page to search in specific languages or countries, translate text, change language interfaces, or link to country-specific Google sites. Google Translate is another site option. Glearch allows you to search for language and country-specific content in "top results from Google, Yahoo and Bing as well as the most popular search engines for the selected country."

• Africa Action-- "National [U.S.] organization that works for political, economic and social justice in Africa. Through the provision of accessible information and analysis combined with the mobilization of public pressure we work to change the policies and policy-making processes of U.S. and multinational institutions toward Africa."

• Africa Desk-- Research guide portal to African studies, particularly in the UK and Africa. Posts "directories of African and UK scholars... in addition to information on African studies centres in the UK and specialist Africanist libraries in the UK and elsewhere in Europe... a central hub of information on Africanist research carried out in the UK."

• Africa Governance, Monitoring and Advocacy Project-- From the Open Society Institute, "aims to  monitor and promote compliance by African states with the requirements of good governance, democracy, human rights and the rule of law." Fine site has large library and posts relevant news and "reports identifying achievements and challenges in complying with international standards relating to human rights, the rule of law and accountable government, and suggesting means to improve performance."

• Africa Institute of South Africa-- Research organization focusing on current affairs in Africa, such as the African Union, NEPAD, and foreign policy. Site has information about research programs, library and documentation center (with a searchable catalogue), new publications, and full text briefing papers on peace and governance issues.

• Africa Leadership Forum-- Website of the Forum created by leading African statespersons to improve leadership skills in Africa, with news about Forum activities, digital library, many quality online publications on major African issues, and the magazine Africa Forum.

• Africa Map-- From Harvard University, excellent interactive map with data layers that "allows students, researchers, and the general public to interact with the best available public data for Africa, see the whole of Africa yet also zoom in to particular places, accumulate both contemporary and historical data supplied by researchers and make it permanently accessible online, [and] work collaboratively across disciplines and organizations with spatial information about Africa in an online environment." Provides partial interfacing for all other world areas.

• Africa Portal-- "Undertaking by the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Makerere University, and the South African Institute of International Affairs, the Africa Portal offers open access to a suite of features including an online library collection; a resource for opinion and analysis; an experts directory; an international events calendar; and a mobile technology component—all aimed to equip users with research and information on Africa’s current policy issues."

• Africa South of the Sahara-- Very broad annotated directory of  Internet resources by Karen Fung of the Stanford University Libraries, arranged by countries, regions, topics, or search, plus "Breaking News."

• African Development Bank Group-- "Regional multilateral development finance institution established in 1964 and engaged in mobilising resources towards the economic and social progress of its Regional Member Countries... the premier financial development institution of Africa." Posts statistics, reports, and studies on African finance and development issues, including the major annual African Economic Outlook and African Development Report.

• African Economic Outlook-- Annual report and related data and analysis from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, "a reference report that covers recent economic, political and social developments on the continent and undertakes original, short-term projections."

• African Elections Project-- Provides comprehensive election-related information for several African countries, from the International Institute for ICT Journalism.

• African Human Security Initiative-- Project to "generate information that can be used to review the scale of crime and the criminal justice systems in [African] countries undergoing the APRM [African Union Peer Review Mechanism]." Site posts information on the project, background papers, theoretical studies on the topic, and country reviews.

• African Journals Online-- "The world's largest and pre-eminent collection of peer-reviewed, African-published scholarly journals." Posts journal issues and articles.

• African Union-- The international organization for all African countries, with information about the AU and its member countries.

• Afrika.no-- Comprehensive guide from the the Norwegian Council for Africa, with an annotated links directory, news, background information, and an interactive forum.

• Afrobarometer-- "Independent, nonpartisan research project that measures the social, political and economic atmosphere in Africa. Afrobarometer surveys are conducted in more than a dozen African countries and are repeated on a regular cycle. Because the instrument asks a standard set of questions, countries can be systematically compared." Online data analysis and downloadable data.

• AllAfrica-- "A voice of, by and about Africa-- aggregating, producing and distributing 2000 news and information items daily from over 130 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public."

• Aluka-- "International, collaborative initiative building an online digital library of scholarly resources from and about Africa... includes a wide variety of high-quality scholarly materials contributed by Aluka’s partners, ranging from archival documents, periodicals, books, reports, manuscripts, and reference works, to three-dimensional models, maps, oral histories, plant specimens, photographs, and slides." Includes library tools.

• H-Africa Discussion Network-- "Member of H-Net's consortium of scholarly lists. H-Africa encourages discussion of Africa's history, culture, and African studies generally. Africanists of all disciplines are encouraged to subscribe." Many online resources for African studies.

• H-AfrPol Discussion Network-- Member of H-Net's consortium of scholarly lists. "On-line discussion forum, web site, and electronic service for scholars, students, teachers, diplomats, members of the international humanitarian community, and others interested in the serious study of current African politics."

• Ibrahim Index-- From the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, data and reports on "the effective delivery of public goods and services to African citizens... the most comprehensive collection of quantitative data that provides an annual assessment of governance performance in every African country."

• Institute for Democracy in South Africa-- "Independent public interest organisation committed to promoting sustainable democracy based on active citizenship, democratic institutions, and social justice." Posts papers, reports, newsletters, articles and more, largely about South Africa.

• Integrated Regional Information Network-- From the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, providing searchable news items on crises in sub-Saharan Africa.

• Making Finance Work for Africa-- "Knowledge hub for data, latest news, links, and resources on African financial sectors... from country financial sector profiles across the continent to thematic snapshots, the website makes available a vast amount of resources."

• Partnership for Higher Education in Africa-- Joint project of many foundations to promote and develop higher education in Africa. "This website contains information about the Partnership, a searchable database of Partnership grants, publications sponsored by the Partnership, a searchable Africa Regional Networks database, and links to other sites..."

• United Nations Economic Commission for Africa-- News, information, many statistics, and many online reports are available free in full-text from this United Nations regional organization. Great source for authoritative online economic information about Africa.

• Virtual Library on Capacity Development-- From the African Capacity Building Foundation,  many studies on socio-political and economic capabilities issues and policies in Africa, within the goal of "building sustainable human and institutional capacity for poverty reduction in Africa."

• World Bank Sub-Saharan Africa Information-- Papers, discussion notes, and reports on economic, environmental, and social issues in Sub-Saharan Africa today, overall and by country. Note the Statistics in Africa World Bank page, "dedicated to gathering and presenting information and resources related to statistics on Africa." Also consult the World Bank blog Africa can... end Poverty.

• World Wide Web Virtual Library: African Studies-- Very helpful and comprehensive,"an on-going compilation of electronic bibliographic resources and research materials on Africa available on the global Internet, created under the purview of the African Studies Department of Columbia University Libraries."