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The paper very briefly looks at some efforts in the bibliographic control of social science information generated within Africa by describing the activities of the Pan African Development Information System (PADIS) in Ethiopia; the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) in Zimbabwe; the South African Bibliographic and Information Network (SABINET) in South Africa and the National Institute of Development Research and Documentation (NIR) at the University of Botswana.

Acquiring both published and unpublished documents produced in Africa is, generally, a difficult task due to the existing poor state of bibliographic control and the publishing industry. It is even more difficult to obtain unpublished documents in a specialised area of study such as demography — a diffused area which cuts across several disciplines. This paper discusses the problems encountered on acquisition trips to some African countries to acquire unpublished population material, and some recommendations are made to help improve the current unsatisfactory situation.

In Africa generally, collecting and disseminating socio‐economic grey literature can be difficult because of the existing unsatisfactory bibliographic control situation and the poor state of the publishing industry. Looks at the socio‐economic grey literature scenario in the Southern African subregion by mentioning the sources of such literature and some of the efforts that have been made to organize it. Discusses the role of the National Institute of Development Research and Documentation (NIR) of the University of Botswana in collecting, publicizing and providing access to the literature in Botswana and the problems that are encountered and the attempted solutions. Concludes that the establishment of a national network of socio‐economic grey literature producers would go a long way towards its effective bibliographic control both within Botswana and the Southern African region as a whole.