Authorship

The majority of publications supported by CTA have originated from Northern authors, sometimes in collaboration with ACP authors. There are good reasons why this has been so:

• CTA responds to requests/proposals for support which it receives (in general, the Centre neither invites contributions nor commissions manuscripts from authors or partners)
• the proposals received often originate from institutions or publishers based in Europe
• these institutions and publishers are generally better equipped than their ACP counterparts to produce and distribute books
• in the past, CTA has not adopted a programme to draw the attention of potential ACP authors and co-publishers to its policies and criteria for support
• ACP authors tend to write books, which are country-specific, or which have a limited geographic scope, whilst one of CTA's selection criteria requires books to have a wide geographic coverage (two or more countries).

More recently CTA has identified a number of objectives aimed at increasing ACP participation in future publishing ventures supported by the Centre and improving the adaptation of publications to meet the needs of ACP readers, whilst supporting the development of ACP capabilities in information and communication. These are:

• to create better awareness of CTA's policies and criteria for support to books through the publication of articles in periodicals such as the African Publishing Review, brochures or information leaflets aimed at potential ACP authors and partners, and use of the CTA Web site
• to develop and consolidate better links with ACP organisations to produce and distribute co-publications which respond to the demands of ACP readers and to the quality requirements of CTA. To achieve this, CTA will:
  • take advantage of its participation at international book fairs;
  • study the links with activities of the Seminars and Studies and Information and Capacity Development Departments, in particular, with regard to the programme of training in scientific writing and publishing;
  • strengthen links with APNET and other international networks and organisations concerned with ACP publishing to identify new publishing partners; and
  • within the Publications and Dissemination Department, assess the time and resources needed to effectively support and guide ACP authors and publishing partners.
• to participate, at prepress level, in the collection of information and writing-up stages
• to give preference to Northern publishers who practise a publication policy favourable to ACP authors
• to study the possibility of launching new collections or serial publications which will involve the participation of ACP authors.