Open Access Realities: A Perspective from MENA Regions, with a Focus on North Africa, particularly Egypt
Open Access (OA) is widely promoted as a mechanism to democratize knowledge and remove barriers to scholarly communication. Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, progress toward this goal is visible but uneven. North Africa, in particular, presents a complex Open Access landscape, characterized by strong public commitment, widespread adoption of Diamond Open Access models, and persistent challenges related to quality, sustainability, and global visibility.
Diamond Open Access: Equity with Constraints
Diamond Open Access (DOA), which eliminates fees for both authors and readers, has gained significant traction across North Africa. The model aligns closely with regional priorities around equity, public ownership of knowledge, and resistance to commercial monopolization of academic publishing. Many journals in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt are operated by universities or public institutions and rely on volunteer editorial labor.
However, the same features that make Diamond OA attractive also expose structural vulnerabilities. Limited and inconsistent funding restricts investment in professional editorial services, digital publishing infrastructure, and rigorous peer-review systems. As a result, many journals struggle to meet international indexing and ethical standards despite their strong local relevance.
Quantity Versus Quality: What the Data Reveal
National publishing platforms across North Africa host a large number of Open Access journals. Yet global visibility remains limited when measured against international benchmarks such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
Table 1. Open Access journals in North Africa and DOAJ indexing status
| Country | OA journals on national platforms | OA journals indexed in DOAJ | Percentage indexed (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morocco | 198 | 35 | 17.7 |
| Algeria | 891 | 32 | 3.6 |
| Egypt | 1,060 | 315 | 29.7 |
| Tunisia | 26 | 6 | 23.1 |
| Libya | 69 | 5 | 7.2 |
| Total | 2,244 | 393 | 17.5 |
The data in Table 1 highlight a clear imbalance. While North Africa accounts for more than 2,200 OA journals, fewer than one in five meet DOAJ quality and transparency criteria. Egypt performs comparatively well, with nearly 30% of its OA journals indexed, whereas Algeria shows a particularly large gap between output volume and recognized quality.
Persistent Barriers to Global Visibility
Several factors contribute to this disparity. Many journals continue to operate without standardized editorial workflows or modern publishing platforms such as Open Journal Systems (OJS). Language also plays a decisive role, as a substantial proportion of research is published in Arabic or French without English titles, abstracts, or metadata, limiting discoverability by global indexing services.
Editorial capacity remains another critical issue. Insufficient training in peer review management, publication ethics, and best practices has contributed to inconsistent quality and, in some cases, reputational damage associated with predatory publishing behaviors.
Egypt as a National Case Study
Egypt offers a distinctive example within the MENA region. The launch of the Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB) in 2016 marked one of the most ambitious national investments in scholarly access worldwide. Through centralized agreements, the EKB provides all Egyptian citizens with access to major international publishers and supports Open Access publishing by covering Article Processing Charges under selected arrangements.
In parallel, Egypt has expanded its commitment to openness through policy. The adoption of a National Open Data Policy in 2025 mandates free access to non-sensitive government data, reinforcing transparency and data-driven research.
Despite these advances, the Egyptian OA ecosystem remains uneven. Government-funded institutions benefit substantially from centralized infrastructure, while independent researchers and civil society organizations face regulatory and operational constraints that limit their participation in open knowledge production.
The Road Ahead
The North African experience demonstrates that Open Access success cannot be measured by journal counts alone. Quality assurance, editorial professionalism, sustainable funding, and inclusive governance are decisive factors. Regional collaboration, targeted training for editors and reviewers, adoption of open-source publishing technologies, and multilingual dissemination strategies are essential for strengthening credibility and impact.
For Egypt and its regional neighbors, the next phase of Open Access development will depend less on expansion and more on consolidation, ensuring that openness is matched by quality, integrity, and long-term resilience.
Keywords
Open Access Diamond Open Access MENA region North Africa Egypt DOAJ indexing scholarly publishing research visibility academic publishing policy
Prof. Negm is a professor of Hydraulics and (Water Resources) in Water and Water structures Engineering Department at Faculty of Engineering of Zagazig University. He worked as a demonstrator in the Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University in 1986 and continued till he occupied the position of vice-dean for Academic and Student Affairs. He worked for Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST) as a professor of Water Resources since Dec. 2012 until Sept. 2016 and chairperson of Environmental Engineering Dept. at E-JUST since March 2013 until March 2016.
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Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of their affiliated institutions, the Asian Council of Science Editors (ACSE), or the Editor’s Café editorial team.
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MB Rokni
26 December, 2025Dear colleague
This is an important issue. To be Open Access or not is not an important criterion for indexing databases. As you have written correctly, mostly the geographical distribution of authors, editorial board, quality of papers, diversity of the kind of papers, etc. are very important criteria. DOAJ is a third rank database and effort should be concentrated on 1st and 2nd rank cases like PubMed, ISI, etc. These databases get lots on money of their clients, so for this reason they have to present a journal which encompasses various papers in favor of more countries. When we check the papers, mostly are from the country where the journal is published or even the journal affiliated university. Diamond Open Access can not help to fix this problem. Nowadays we need money to improve the equality and quantity. Even wealthy countries don't accept such a system. Change the diamond to iron !!