Created in 1962 at the initiative of the Kingdom of Morocco and African governments, with the support of UNESCO, the African Training and Research Centre in Administration for Development (CAFRAD) is the first pan-African intergovernmental organization dedicated to training, research, and the improvement of public administration and governance systems on the African continent. For more than six decades, CAFRAD has supported African States in their efforts toward administrative modernization, institutional strengthening, and the promotion of effective, inclusive governance adapted to the realities of the continent.

In this spirit, CAFRAD has published since 1967 the biannual scientific journal Cahiers Africains d’Administration Publique, which has made a significant contribution to the enrichment of African and international literature in the field of public administration. The result of close collaboration with numerous international organizations such as the African Union, the European Union, the United Nations, UNDP, UN DESA, and the OECD, this journal has established itself as a forum for reflection, analysis, and dissemination of knowledge on public policies, administrative reforms, and governance issues.

Under the new leadership of CAFRAD, headed by its new Director General, Dr. Coffi Dieudonné ASSOUVI—elected on July 9, 2024, by the 59th Ordinary Session of the governing Board—a major reform of this reference publication has been undertaken through the creation of the African Review of Smart Public Administration (RAAPI). This new editorial project reflects the desire to adapt scientific output to the profound administrative, economic, digital, and sociopolitical transformations taking place in Africa, within a global context marked by uncertainty, complexity, and accelerating change. RAAPI thus aims to move beyond traditional approaches to public administration by offering a renewed, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary reading of the continent’s governance and development dynamics.

RAAPI is intended to be a journal of strategic analysis and scientific monitoring, devoted to the study of intelligent, sustainable, and inclusive transformations of African public administrations. It pays particular attention to emerging issues in contemporary public action, notably digital transformation and artificial intelligence, economic and fiscal changes, natural resource governance, performance-based approaches to public administration, global security, geopolitics, geo-economics, as well as ongoing institutional, legal, and organizational reconfigurations in Africa and worldwide. Through these themes, the journal seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the continent’s structural transformations and to the anticipation of the challenges and opportunities arising from them.

Beyond academic production, RAAPI positions itself as a genuine decision-support and capacity-building tool. It aspires to become a key reference handbook for public decision-makers, practitioners, researchers, and experts by providing rigorous analyses, comparative studies, feedback from experience, best practices, and innovative solutions in governance and public management. In a globalized and turbulent environment, where information is abundant but rarely strategic, RAAPI aims to produce distinctive, useful, relevant, and high-quality information capable of identifying risks, anticipating threats, and seizing opportunities.

For its inaugural issue, RAAPI invites academics, researchers, experts, and practitioners working on African issues—both in the public and private sectors—to submit contributions addressing the theme of Africa’s and Africa-based digital, ecological, and economic transformations. Articles, written in French, English, or Arabic, will be subject to a rigorous and anonymous scientific peer-review process, ensuring the academic quality and relevance of the published works.

Through this ambitious editorial project, CAFRAD reaffirms its vocation as a pan-African center of excellence dedicated to strengthening institutional capacities, modernizing public administrations, and promoting intelligent, ethical, and responsible governance capable of sustainably supporting Africa’s development in a world undergoing profound transformation.

File format

Please submit one PDF file and one Word file, with the file name formatted as: AUTHOR’S NAME _ Article Title, ensuring that hyphens are not used.

All submissions must be sent to the following address: cafrad@cafrad.org