Brian Wafawarowa

International Publishers Association

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Brian Wafawarowa has a long history in publishing in South Africa. He was managing director at New Africa Books and has served asChairperson of the Publishers Association of South Africa (PASA), the African Publishers Network (APNET) and is currently on the boardof the International Publishers Association (IPA). He is active in publishing and has a new press, Lefa Publishing and ResearchServices. Brian talks here to Stephanie Kitchen of the International Africa Institute.

March 2019

1. Stephanie Kitchen: Brian Wafawarowa (BW), I know you are working with the International Publishers Association, (IPA), thePublishers Association of South Africa (PASA) and other publishers’ associations from the African continent. You were also a publisheryourself at one time. And you are also a researcher, author and consultant on publishing in the African continent. Could you summarise forreaders of readafricanbooks.com your interesting and varied career to date in African publishing? 

BW: I remain in publishing. As an independent publisher with my own new outfit, Lefa Publishing and Research Services (lefaPRS), I am freeto participate in some of the activities that you have mentioned. It broadens my horizon beyond being employed as a publisher. I started mycareer at Wits University Press in 1994 where I was an intern helping the editors and the publisher with various aspects of their work. Ilater joined Juta as a trainee assistant publisher in 1996 and stayed there till 2000. By then I had become publishing director withresponsibility for Juta education (schools and academic) and the University of Cape Town Press, which is an imprint of Juta. I left in 2000to start New Africa Education (NAE) with New Africa Investment Limited (NAIL). Later I spearheaded the merger of NAE, David Philip andSpearhead to create New Africa Books (NAB) as its managing director. I left NAB in 2009 to become executive director of the PASA. In 2013 Ijoined Pearson South Africa (homes of Heinemann and Longman) as the executive director of Learning Services. I left Pearson in 2017 andstarted lefaPRS, which includes publishing and research services. My career has been much broader, to include significant involvement insector policy and strategy in South Africa, the African continent and the globe. To this end I served as Chairperson of the PublishersAssociation of South Africa (PASA), the African Publishers Network (APNET) and also still serve on the board of the International PublishersAssociation (IPA). I spent a lot of time on literacy and reading programmes like the Exclusive Books Reading Trust and the Nick PerrenPublishing Foundation, where I am a trustee. These foundations build libraries in rural areas and provide scholarships for postgraduatestudies in publishing.

2. SK: how do you see the economic base of the publishing industry – in South Africa, and as far as possible in the continentmore generally? 

BW: The economic base of the industry is quite precarious and erratic at the moment. This is mainly due to over-dependence on schooltextbooks. Education publishing accounts for more than 90% of all publishing in some parts of the continent, while in more mature anddiverse markets like South Africa, it is still quite high, around 70%. Even companies that are in trade and general publishing rely onselling some of their products in the education market. The textbook market is very susceptible to changes in government policy, includingprocurement and copyright, as is being experienced in South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda and other countries at the moment.

3. SK: You have carried out research on the contribution of the publishing sector in Africa to GDP. Can you tell us more aboutthis? What is the approximate contribution – of publishing to creative economies, GDP etc. Do you see this growing in the future? 

BW: We do not have reliable information on the continent. There are efforts with WIPO and the IPA to get more reliable figures on thecontinent. Even in South Africa, where the industry is relatively more developed, at approximately R4 billion, contribution to GDP, which isestimated at approximately R4.5 trillion, is insignificant in monetary terms. The publishing sector is part of a small creative industrieseconomy, which is less than 3% of the total economy. At approximately R4 billion, the contribution of the publishing sector is less than 5%of the creative economy. I suspect that the situation is quite similar in other African countries and much direr in some. However, I thinkbeyond contribution to GDP, the industry’s contribution needs to be viewed in terms of its role in critical sectors like education, wheregood textbooks are as important as teachers and lecturers in driving education outcomes. We also need to look at the sector in terms of itsuntapped potential. With a huge and growing youth population and a huge need for education, the book sector has much greater potential forgrowth than has been realised. There are fears in South Africa and in a number of other African countries that new copyright policies, ‘onetextbook’ policies in education procurement, and state publishing will set the industry back and reduce output and employment in the sectorsignificantly. This at a time when there is a strong call for decolonisation of the curriculum and education could be ironic and tragic. 

4. SK: What factors are involved in improving and expanding this economic base? I’m thinking here of copyright regimes,national, regional and international markets, distribution, book fairs and so on. Are there examples of where this is being donesuccessfully? 

BW: Many African countries today have book and reading promotion activities that are aimed at expanding readership and publishing output.These promotions include high level initiatives like the Yaoundé conference organised by WIPO atthe end of 2017 on the economic contribution of the publishing sector to Africa. This was attended by government and industry people frommany African countries. The WIPO initiative has resulted in a number of ongoing programmes that are aimed at improving the African booksector. These include the Publishers Circles and the mentorship programmes. There is also the GlobalBook Alliance (GBA)made up of many book donor communities. It aims to increase the production of more appropriate children’s books by African countries. The IPA helda conference on African publishing in Lagos in 2018. The IPA will be holding its second conference on African publishing in Nairobi thisyear. Out of the Lagos conference came a number of programmes that are being pursued now. These include an industry statistics project, aprogramme to strengthen copyright and a national book policy development project. There are very strong African book fairs today, includingin Ghana, Nairobi, Cairo, Zimbabwe and South Africa. These are backed by strong campaigns and literary festivals like the National Book Weekin South Africa. We also are seeing a strong revival of the African Publishers Network (APNET).It is co-ordinating the activities of many African countries in global programmes and book events. So, there is really a lot going on. Whatis encouraging about these initiatives is that they are backed by real projects that seek to uplift the publishing and book sector. However,as indicated earlier, the policy environment is challenging and paints a rather bleak picture for the future. 

5. SK: what do you see as the key agencies in promoting and developing publishing on the continent – both regional andinternational bodies? How do you see their roles? How can these bodies help promote the sustainability of the African publishingindustry and professional capacity of African publishers? Are there examples or case studies from other parts of the world Africanpublishing can draw on? 

BW: It is regrettable that after years of notable advocacy and capacity building, the African Publishers Network (APNET) and the Pan AfricanBooksellers Association (PABA) went through a major lull and could not carry out their important work. The African book sector will only beviable when it reduces its dependence on textbooks and state procurement, to include general books that are aimed at a reading public. Forthat to be realised we need larger book economies that go beyond national borders along common social interests, fiction, general folkloreand common languages. However, there are many issues that have to be overcome at a continental and regional level. APNET and PABA can play acritical role in resolving some of those regional and sub-regional issues. It is interesting that at multilateral agencies like WIPO,African countries often present one voice in their negotiations with their European, American, Latin American and other regionalcounterparts. These positions are hardly informed by the needs of these sectors back home. APNET and PABA could play a key role in lobbyingAfrican groups before positions are formulated for multilateral engagements. Such views would then be more informed by the situation on theground and the needs of the sector. A clear example of how this has worked well is the role that the Federation of European Publishers (FEP)has played in influencing policy development to the European Union. 

6. SK: it is well known that African publishers are over-dependent on educational publishing (representing some 90% of allpublishing in the continent), which makes them vulnerable to educational and curriculum policy changes, and unable to develop other kinds ofgeneral, academic and literary publishing. What are the reasons for this situation? Are there examples of publishers which have broken withthis cycle and been more successful across other kinds of publishing?

BW: The last 20 years have seen remarkable progress in the production and distribution of education materials. Many centres of excellenceemerged. This includes the East Africa region, including Kenya and Uganda as examples; Southern Africa, including South Africa and Zimbabwe;West Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana; and North Africa, including Egypt and Tunisia. This progress saw a great part of the continentmove away from importing textbook materials to producing them locally. In the majority of cases these are good quality materials that meetthe needs of local education fully. These decades also saw the development of local professional publishers and the establishment of localcompanies. This was buoyed by the development of strong local publishers’ associations, book fairs and regional and sub-regional bookdevelopment organisations like APNET, PABA and the East African Book Development Association. These organisations implemented capacitybuilding programmes that helped professionalise and strengthened local publishing. In some of these countries close to 100% of all booksused in their education sector are produced locally. The gains in education publishing and the various reading campaigns have also improvedgeneral publishing and improved distribution outlets for general readers. Notable achievements in this regard include Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya,South Africa and Zimbabwe, before the current economic and social crisis. Despite this progress, a lot more still has to happen to create anindustry that is less dependent on textbooks and government procurement. These gains are likely to be eroded by negative developments thatare mainly driven by a desire by education authorities to achieve universal access to education materials. This is leading to initiativeslike state publishing, the call for additional exceptions to copyright on education materials and in some cases severe limiting of thenumber of approved titles.

7. SK: At the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair, ‘ProgrammeLettres d’Afrique: changing the narrative’you spoke memorably about a ‘crisis of access’ in education, schools and educational publishing in the African continent; this could alsoarguably characterise the academic sector too. Could you say more about what you meant by this ‘crisis of access’ – its roots, the demandfor universal education and access to materials, which is still primarily through printed books in the case of schools. You also discussedwhat you characterised as ‘negative policy developments’ ensuing from this access crisis as symptoms of what actors are doing wrong. Couldyou elaborate on this?

BW: What I describe as the crisis of access is the feeling and to a great extent the fact that the success of local publishing that Idescribed earlier has not necessarily led to the expected universal coverage of textbooks in the education sector. Governments and educationauthorities are facing huge social pressure for access to services, including education. The part that affects the industry most is accessto textbooks. The education authorities in many African countries today are thinking of changing copyright and procurement laws to enhanceaccess to textbooks. For example the Africa Group on the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) are pushing togetherfor copyright reform that would create greater access to education materials for education, libraries and archives. South Africa has goneahead and created a Bill that seeks among other things to achieve this. In the publishing area, both South Africa and Rwanda are close tostate publishing while other countries like Cameroon and Kenya are implementing one textbook policies. The problem is that additionalexceptions which weaken copyright protection for greater access to education undermine the base of the African education publishing sector.The argument is often that these exceptions are only for education. Yet, with education accounting in many cases for more than 90% of thebook sector, there is very little left outside education. On the other hand, state publishing and one textbook policies will also negativelyaffect the education publishing sector. State publishing has the potential to wipe out education publishing while one textbook policies willcertainly reduce the commercial space for education publishers. Although this is aimed at education books, it will have ripple effects forthe whole publishing sector. Developments in both copyright and textbook procurement pose a serious challenge to the viability of theAfrican education publishing sector and the continent’s ability to produce suitable education materials for local education. 

8. SK: Continuing on these policy developments, would you say some more about the Copyright Amendment Bill in South Africa?What’s at stake here? It strikes me that all who are concerned with publishing and knowledge production in Africa, sometimes now framedin terms of ‘decolonisation’, need to be alert to and engage with these developments.

BW: The Copyright Amendment Bill is the result of a comprehensive legislative process that has been on the cards for a long time. Amongother objectives, it seeks to enhance access to education materials by allowing additional exceptions to copyright protection on educationmaterials, including in the schools and post-schools sector. It also seeks to regulate collecting societies and to enhance the benefits ofcopyright protection for authors and creators. The Bill has many positive elements but also some very problematic provisions for rightsholders and creators, especially the fair use provision for education. Publishers and authors have issues with the content of the Bill andalso the process followed. For example a law with such huge potential implications needs to have an impact assessment done on it, but thereis none. The only one that was commissioned by the Publishers’ Association with PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) indicates that the sector willbe adversely affected with reduced output, loss of income and significant job losses. It also points out that local production and exportswill suffer and imports are likely to increase. Rights holders argue that their inputs were disregarded on critical issues and that the Billis at odds with international copyright statutes. On the other hand, advocates of greater access for education find a lot of positives withthe Bill, especially around greater access to education materials through the fair use provisions. The Bill also lumps together quite anumber of very different sectors, including music and book publishing without looking into the nuances of each. The parliamentary committeethat was working on the Bill has passed it and it is now waiting to go through the National Council of Provinces legislators before it issigned into law. There is a strong chance that it will be challenged in the constitutional court. It is ironic that a bill that started withthe objective of ensuring that authors benefit more from their work is very likely to result in reduced income for them and is also likelyto result in reduced local production of content and a concomitant increase in imports. If this happens, as feared, it will have taken theindustry back many years. I analyse the contradiction of the Bill’s attempt to empower authors and enhance access at the same time in thisextensive article, ‘Copyright reform: Carrying water and fire in the same mouth’ published by the DailyMaverick earlierthis year. Local knowledge production and publishing are part and parcel of the decolonisation discourse. If the local sector is underminedlike this, it will be a setback for the decolonisation agenda too. If the campaigners for the decolonisation of curricula want to go beyondrhetoric and slogans, these developments should concern them too. 

9. SK: What are ‘open educational resources’? What are these in an African context?

BW: Open Education Resources (OERs) are freely available and freely licensed education materials, including textbooks, text, media,photographs, digital assets and other materials that aid teaching and learning. In some cases, they include full courses and assessmenttools. Given the greater need for education materials in Africa, the idea of OERs is quite appealing to educators and policy makers.Initially I think OERs were oversold as solutions for access to education materials and an effective substitute for textbooks but it lookslike there is a realisation that most of the OERs are not especially designed as curriculum management and implementation tools, the sameway that textbooks are. While they are suitable as supplementary tools, they cannot substitute a good textbook. There is greater realisationamong educators and publishers in Africa that traditional textbooks and OERs can complement each other. For example, in South Africa theDepartment of Basic Education has created a healthy mix of commercially produced textbooks, OERs and state published supplementarymaterials. This mix up to this point has not harmed the publishing industry. I think publishers have over the last few years come to termswith OERs and the role they can play in education, and do not perceive them as big a threat as they thought initially.

10. SK: Stepping beyond the African context for a few moments, publishing in Africa is, of course, integrated into globalmarkets and technologies. There are intense debates elsewhere on the likely effects of the so-called ‘platform economies’ (searchengines and the like) on research and publishing economies and how academia and the publishing industries should respond and positionthemselves. What’s at stake for African publishers in all this? What are the risks? Are there ways publishers in Africa can takeadvantage of such economies? I’m thinking for example of harnessing them for efficient distribution of unique and hard to accesscontent. 

BW: Many attempts to launch e-learning and learning platforms in many parts of the continent, including South Africa, have met significantchallenges. These challenges include infrastructural and bandwidth problems, security for learners who become targets of criminals who wanttheir devices and teacher reluctance to adopt new ways. Despite these, it is clear that the “platform economies” are the future andtraditional publishers need to gear themselves for this and participate in the promotion of e-learning, digital content and distribution.Many content aggregators are joining the book sector and beginning to play a significant role in the distribution of content, especially ineducation. However, a new business model needs to be developed as a matter of urgency. The efficacy of digital content and e-learning andtheir potential to improve learning outcomes in a region where this is a priority is not questionable but the economics of it remains achallenge. The transition is taking too long and costing education authorities a lot more. Due to the hesitancy to move on to e-learning anddigital content in education, the majority of schools and colleges remain in the dual medium and are spending on both digital and printcontent, for example. On the other hand, publishers are finding it difficult to implement new business models in this dual mediumenvironment. The result is that the expected savings of digital are not being realised. This compounds the crisis of access that I mentionedearlier. The new business model needs to be informed by a reconfiguration of the different roles that traditional publishers and platformand conduit operators play. Platform operators should not undermine the role that rights holders play, in an attempt to assert their ownrole in education. One of the key contentions around the copyright Bill in South Africa is the fear that fair use provisions will allowplatform owners to use rights holders’ content without compensation. Indeed, one of the fears that policy makers have is the restrictionthat copyright protection will have on education materials in the digital era. The belief is that digital will open up access to content,but copyright will restrict that access. That polarity is not helpful at all. Platform operators can play a vital role in the distributionof content and management of content while publishers can continue to develop content and enhanced digital content that can improve learningoutcomes.