Green Books are critical state of the art reviews of the literature that integrate an agenda for research on a subject or theme within the CODESRIA intellectual agenda. Their primary purpose is first and foremost to stimulate debate on a chosen theme preparatory to the possible launching by the Council of a Multinational Working Group (MWG). They are a critical tool by which CODESRIA seeks to generate new knowledge. The Green Books have also been employed as background reference material for the Council’s Annual Social Science Campus, the summer institutes, the comparative research networks, regular research workshops, and policy dialogue conferences. Furthermore, some of the Green Books have been adopted as teaching materials in universities and have enabled researchers faced with a book famine to keep abreast of the scholarly debates in their fields. Green Books are published online on the CODESRIA website and have been among the most frequently downloaded documents, a notable example in this regard being the one on Non-Europhone Intellectuals. Considering their importance to the CODESRIA ambition to place African scholarship at the frontier of research, the choice of the authors of Green Books is based on proven expertise on the theme that is covered. Where necessary, up to three scholars are requested to work together in order to tap into the debates going on in different linguistic zones. The resources of CODICE are also mobilised to support the Green Book author(s) while the final version of the report produced is put through the usual CODESRIA peer review system.

In 2002, nine new Green Books were commissioned, partly as a way of laying the intellectual foundations for the research activities marking the new strategic plan period and programming cycle that had just been launched.

One more Green Book was commissioned in 2005

• Higher Education in Africa: crisis, reform and transformation by N´Dri T. Assie Lumumba, The book has been published.
• The problematic of the State by Abdul Raufu Moustapha
• Re-thinking Development and Re-Inventing Development Economics by Guy Mhone/Thandika Mkandawire
• Africa and its Diaspora: Dispersal and linkages by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza
• The political economy of land in Africa by Sam Moyo
• Santé, Politique et Société en Afrique contemporaine  by Cheikh Ibrahima Niang
• L’Afrique et les défies de la Mondialisation by Georges Kobou
• Youth and Youthhood in Africa by Ibrahim Abdullah
• Reforming the African public sector, retrospect and prospect by Joseph Ayee
• The economic and social impact of privatisation of state owned enterprises in Africa by Mike Obadan