The African Journal of Economic Transformation and Development (AJETD) is committed to promoting accessible and equitable scholarly communication. As an Open Access journal, the journal may charge an Article Processing Charge (APC) to support the costs associated with manuscript processing, peer review administration, editorial management, production, online hosting, archiving and dissemination.

APC Structure: The applicable APC, where charged, shall be clearly stated on the journal’s official website and communicated to authors before publication. No additional publication fee shall be imposed without prior disclosure to the author.

No Submission Fee: Authors shall not be required to pay a fee merely for submitting a manuscript for consideration. Payment, where applicable, is requested only after a manuscript has successfully passed the editorial and peer-review process and has been formally accepted for publication.

Editorial Independence: Payment of an APC does not influence editorial decisions, peer-review outcomes or the acceptance or rejection of manuscripts. Authors are assessed solely on the scholarly quality, originality, relevance, methodological soundness and contribution of their work.

Waivers and Discounts: The journal may consider full or partial APC waivers or discounts in exceptional circumstances, particularly where authors demonstrate financial hardship or where such support is consistent with the journal’s access and inclusion objectives. Requests for waivers shall be considered independently of the editorial decision-making process.

Transparency: All applicable APCs, waiver conditions and payment procedures shall be communicated transparently to authors and made publicly available through the journal’s official publication information.

Refunds: APCs paid for an accepted manuscript are generally non-refundable once publication production has commenced. Where publication cannot proceed due to circumstances attributable to the journal, the publisher may consider an appropriate refund or alternative arrangement.

AJETD does not make payment of an APC a condition for acceptance. The payment of any applicable publication charge is entirely separate from the editorial and peer-review decision-making process.