Reflections on efforts to improve medical publishing in Africa.

Over the last five years several scholarly publishing associations have been launched in Africa - the Forum for African Medical Editors (FAME), the Society of African Journals (SAJE), the Consortium of African Scholarly Publishers (CASP), the Africa Journals Partnership Project and the African Association of Science Editors (AASE). What, if any, has been the impact of these initiatives? This paper reviews the most notable of these associations, FAME, which was established in 2003 with the support of the World Association of Medical Editors, the Council of Science Editors and the Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR). FAME is evaluated in relation to two other international scholarly publishing associations - the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) in South America and the Eastern Mediterranean Association of Medical Editors (EMAME). The article also discusses the future of FAME with regards to new developments in open access publishing through African Journals Online.