Open Access as Development Aid

Today, I heard a talk by a math student from Madagascar who also said a few words on the status of universities in that country. He himself studied at the University of Antananarivo (in total there are six universities in Madagascar), but the conditions to get educated are quite different than in Germany. He reported that, for example, at his university, professors in mathematics are very old, there wasn't a single paper published since the 80's; if you want to get a book from the library, you have to wait in a long queue until you can tell the staff which books you need, and you are lucky if they are still present. Internet access is also not common at home, you usually have to visit an internet café to be online.

With that situation in mind, Open Access appears in a different light: While in the well-developed countries, the request for freely available scientific literature is some kind of a "luxury problem" (when logged in into my university's VPN, I have access to most math articles through the university's contracts with publishers), it is different for less developed countries. I guess most universities in Madagascar cannot afford such contracts with all important journal publishers, i.e. students and researchers do not have access to recent research results. A whole continent is cut off from scientific progress – not necessarily because the education system is bad, but because they cannot afford access to the state of the art in science.

It is common practice in development aid to help people to help themselves. ("Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.") In this sense, Open Access is a form of development aid, as it helps less developed countries to close the gap to well-developed ones by themselves; it brings them in a position where they have at least a chance to close this gap. While it is nice-to-have for scientists in the Western world, it is a necessity for scientists in less developed countries.