Ensuring the Future of Digital Repositories in West and Central Africa: A Case Study on BAOBAB and Sustainable Repository Development

As part of WACREN's commitment to advancing equitable access to research outputs and digital resources across West and Central Africa, we have deployed BAOBAB—an Invenio-based digital repository that provides open access to academic and research content for our member institutions. BAOBAB is designed not only to store research content but also to ensure its long-term sustainability. A key feature is the automated assignment of Archival Resource Keys (ARKs), providing persistent identifiers to every uploaded item, which is critical for digital preservation and discovery. In this presentation, we discuss the implementation and adoption of BAOBAB, our integration of ARKs, and the challenges and lessons learned in building sustainable repository infrastructure for diverse institutional needs. Our goal is to inspire and inform repository managers, developers, and librarians on how regional repositories like BAOBAB can contribute to sustainable access to knowledge and preservation of content across generations.