More than a year into the disruptions and challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is good to be able to relate some positive developments to the readers of the Journal. On a basic level, we are pleased to be able to publish on schedule, despite the impacts of the pandemic on the availability of editors and peer reviewers. We thank our reviewers in particular for making time for us during the past year. Submissions to the journal increased dramatically over this period (up by 45% from 2019). Although a challenge to process, we appreciate the confidence in and support for the journal that these submissions represent. Readership of the journal also increased sharply, rising 44% year-on-year to over 158,000 downloads during 2020 (downloads have risen a further 29% in the first quarter of 2021). We are pleased to be reaching a broad and growing audience, with almost one-third of our readers located in Africa.
Keeping the journal going during this difficult year has been a group effort. We are grateful to our Editorial Advisory Board for its support, especially with peer review, and to the British Institute in Eastern Africa, our sponsors, and Taylor & Francis, our publishers, for their promotion of the journal.
We are also grateful to Dr James Brennan, who will be stepping down from the Editorial Board with this issue, having remained on for an extra year while we navigated the pandemic crisis. James has played a crucial role in helping to drive the growth and success of the journal since he joined the Editorial team in 2012. We are pleased that he will continue his involvement with the journal as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board.
The Editors are delighted to welcome Dr Paul Tiyambe Zeleza to the Editorial team. Paul is the Vice Chancellor of United States International University-Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, where he is also Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences. His research interests are truly interdisciplinary, from economic and intellectual history to human rights, gender studies and diaspora studies. Paul is also active in mentoring networks for scholars in Africa, including between researchers in the African diaspora and academics in the region. We are looking forward to working with Paul on the next stage of the journal’s development. And we note that in a sense this is a homecoming, given his involvement in the launch of the journal in 2007.
Perhaps fittingly, this issue starts with a collaborative research article on the ‘real governance’ of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Great Lakes region. We look forward to your engagement with this, and the other articles in this issue and volume, and to the journal’s continued growth and support for scholarship from and about Eastern Africa.