# Machine Learning Research Trends in Africa: A 30 Years Overview with Bibliometric Analysis Review

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.07542 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07542/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 12 of its 237 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Apr 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [State-of-the-art Speech Recognition With Sequence-to-Sequence Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.01769/) (2017)
- [ranger: A Fast Implementation of Random Forests for High Dimensional Data in C++ and R](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1508.04409/) (2015)
- [Deep Learning COVID-19 Features on CXR using Limited Training Data Sets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05758/) (2020)
- [An Overview on Application of Machine Learning Techniques in Optical Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.07976/) (2018)
- [Quantum ensembles of quantum classifiers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.02146/) (2017)
- [The FLUXCOM ensemble of global land-atmosphere energy fluxes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04951/) (2018)
- [Ubenwa: Cry-based Diagnosis of Birth Asphyxia](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.06405/) (2017)
- [The application of artificial intelligence in software engineering: a review challenging conventional wisdom](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.01591/) (2021)
- [Ensemble-based Multi-Filter Feature Selection Method for DDoS Detection in Cloud Computing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.10443/) (2018)
- [Pre-interpolation loss behaviour in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07986/) (2021)
- [Multi-style Training for South African Call Centre Audio](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.07219/) (2022)
- [Efficient acoustic feature transformation in mismatched environments using a Guided-GAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00721/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [A Comprehensive Study of Groundbreaking Machine Learning Research: Analyzing highly cited and impactful publications across six decades](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00855/) (2023)
- [Classical Machine Learning: Seventy Years of Algorithmic Learning Evolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01747/) (2024)
- [NaijaNLP: A Survey of Nigerian Low-Resource Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.19784/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper, a critical bibliometric analysis study is conducted, coupled with an extensive literature survey on recent developments and associated applications in machine learning research with a perspective on Africa. The presented bibliometric analysis study consists of 2761 machine learning-related documents, of which 98% were articles with at least 482 citations published in 903 journals during the past 30 years. Furthermore, the collated documents were retrieved from the Science Citation Index EXPANDED, comprising research publications from 54 African countries between 1993 and 2021. The bibliometric study shows the visualization of the current landscape and future trends in machine learning research and its application to facilitate future collaborative research and knowledge exchange among authors from different research institutions scattered across the African continent.