Africa Portal

Africa Portal, from the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Makerere Univ., and South African Inst. of International Affairs.  An "online knowledge resource for policy-related issues on Africa," is a project of the Africa Initiative, a "multi-year, donor-supported program, with three components: a research program, an exchange program, and an online portal."

Its Africa Initiative Research section focus is on critical areas of African policy: Conflict Resolution, Energy, Food Security, Health, Migration, and Climate Change. The Library is a collection of over 5,000 books, journals, and digital documents and is completely open access; all material is available as full-text downloads. A Library search for "food security" yielded a list of results accompanied by several options for refining results (by year, subject, topic  or country). Each item in the results list is assigned at least one subject term; these are Library of Congress Subject Headings (and are clickable to bring back all items that also have that heading).

The Opinion/Analysis section  features "informed commentary, analysis, and backgrounders on current events related to African policy issues," particularly in the six critical areas mentioned above.
The Experts tab reveals a directory of prominent scholars/practitioners and includes brief biographies, contact information, and in some cases, photos.
Finally, the Events section lists meetings, conferences, lectures, and other events on African policy issues; it currently includes events through the end of 2011.

Each event is tagged for the appropriate critical area. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through professionals / practitioners interested in African policy issues. -- E. A. Francis, Oberlin College Library. Reviewed in ACRL's May 2011 CHOICE