This affects the university press, which is faced with demands to be self-sustaining. One route forward is through co-publishing. In his experience, most co-publishing agreements have been dual, but are still problematic. Print-runs may be split in favour of one partner rather than the other. The UZ press has found itself disadvantaged by power politics.
Contracts tend to favour the more powerful Northern partner.
There is a danger of getting landed with a large unsaleable print-run or disproportionate costs. He has also found the response from potential co-publishers in the North to good work originating in Africa to be disappointing, and it is dangerous to move ahead without confirmation of firm interest. African science is not at the cutting edge of world science, it tends to be looked at with suspicion and is assumed to be not up to standard. This makes co-publishing doubly difficult. But there is no comparable export of African scientists.