Ethical standards are of paramount importance to ensure the high quality of scientific publications, establish the credibility of scientific findings, and duly acknowledge authors for their contributions.

Afri publishing is committed to upholding rigorous ethical standards through a range of policies. These guidelines can be accessed in the following sections:

Afri publishing proudly aligns with the ethical principles set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We strongly endorse COPE's Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors as well as the Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers as industry best practices. Afri publishing also adheres to OASPA's (Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association), principles of transparency and best practices in scholarly publishing.

Editors, among their various responsibilities, are obligated to ensure that all manuscripts submitted to Afri publishing are evaluated for their scientific merit, without any discrimination based on factors such as sex, gender, race, religion, citizenship, etc. Editors also uphold strict confidentiality regarding all manuscript-related information.

Reviews of submitted manuscripts must be conducted objectively, with referees articulating their views using well-founded arguments. Referees must treat all information related to the manuscripts they review as confidential.

Afri publishing is dedicated to following COPE's Core Practices by:

• Ensuring editorial independence.
• Respecting the privacy of all stakeholders in the research and publication process.
• Safeguarding authors' copyright and facilitating liberal distribution licenses.

In addition to the aforementioned principles, authors are urged to consider the following:

Originality: To maintain ethical standards, Afri publishing journals only publish original content that has not been previously published, except in the form of abstracts, preprints, published lectures, theses, discussion papers, or similar formats that have not undergone full journal peer review, and is not under consideration for peer-reviewed publication elsewhere. Manuscripts based on conference proceedings must introduce significant novelty compared to the conference paper, with the proceedings publication constituting no more than 60% of the manuscript content. Authors must consent to this in a consent form. Redundant publications, commonly known as the "salami tactic" of publishing small portions of the same research in multiple papers, should be avoided.

Author Contribution and Funding Statement: All authors named on a scientific work must have made substantial contributions to it. Conversely, all individuals who contributed to the work must be acknowledged in the list of authors. Additionally, sources of financial support, if any, must be transparently disclosed.

Citation Manipulation: Any manipulation of citations, including citing sources that do not contribute to a manuscript's scientific content or citations intended solely to increase an author's or journal's citations, is considered scientific misconduct.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism refers to the use of material and ideas created by another person without proper attribution. To prevent plagiarism, every manuscript submitted to Afri publishing through the journal system undergoes plagiarism checks using iThenticate. The decision to reject a manuscript due to fraud or proceed with the peer-review process rests with the handling editor. The similarity reports are also made available to referees.

If an author, whose previous manuscript was rejected due to fraud, submits another manuscript to one of Afri publishing's journals, the system automatically informs the handling editor and the Afri publishing Editorial Support. The handling editor decides whether the new manuscript should undergo peer review.

At Afri publishing, our commitment to ethical publication practices is unwavering, ensuring the integrity and credibility of the scientific research we publish.