User:Filippo Morsiani/Open access in Afghanistan

Open Access in Afghanistan; Afghanistan has made a beginning towards digital information. Afghan government announced that it will give approved researchers access to the raw data it collects in its demographic and economic surveys, expanding access from the prepared data sets it provides now. This step is taken towards enhancing open data plan in the country.

No OA journals are currently found to be indexed in OA journal databases such as DOAJ and ROAD. However, researchers from Afghanistan are found to publish their articles in International Open Access Journals. For example,  20+ OA articles have been published with BioMed Central- an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the Open Access publishing model – by researchers from the Ministry of Public Health, the Health Protection and Research Organization, the Ministry of Counter Narcotics and the HealthNet  Malaria & Leishmaniasis Control Programme of Afghanistan, among others.

As of July 2015, there is 01 OA digital repository registered in OpenDOAR. This is theAfghanistan Centre at Kabul University (ACKU) Library Catalogue. There are no OA policies registered in ROARMAP.

Potential Barriers
Afghanistan, still in its post-war phase has underdeveloped conditions in terms of infrastructure, personnel training and funding. Socio-political condition is dire in the post-war period. Most resources are dedicated to re-building the physical infrastructure and fighting terror. Hence barriers to Open Access of information resources are war, migration, and economic hardships in addition to lack of local content in these Arabic/Persian/Farsi/Dari Languages.