Scientific publishing in West Africa: comparing Benin with Ghana and Senegal

We compared scientific indicators related to Benin, Senegal and Ghana. We collected data from Web of Science and used bibliometric indicators like annual production, language and type of publication, citable and cited documents, citations, h-index, field share, specialization index, and international collaboration rate. Results show that Benin performs well regarding the percentage of citable and cited documents, the share of production and the specialization index in the fields of Natural sciences and Agricultural sciences; it occupies the median position with respect to the production and the specialization index in the fields of Engineering and technology on the one hand and Medical and health sciences on the other hand, behind Ghana and ahead Senegal. It lays however behind Ghana and Senegal with respect to the total output, citations per citable or cited documents, h-index, the share of production and specialization index in the fields of Social science and Humanities; it has the highest international collaboration rate. The study revealed that the three countries cooperated less, and only if a third western country intervened. It pointed out the role of Western countries in driving collaboration among developing countries.