Africa’s $7 billion book industry could be worth $18.5 billion if governments invested in local publishing and reduced their reliance on foreign players, a UNESCO report argued.
Educational publishing is particularly lucrative in countries such as Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, UNESCO said. The continent could also better reflect Africa’s linguistic diversity by prioritizing local publishing houses over European ones, the authors wrote. Their argument echoes the stance of legendary Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who championed writing in African languages and died in May, aged 87.
In recent years there has been growing financial interest in developing Africa’s publishing industry. In 2023, for instance, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) introduced the CANEX Book Factory, a digital platform, to highlight Africa’s book value chain alongside launching the CANEX Prize for Publishing in Africa.
