Africa's socioeconomic, cultural and historical context differs from Western developed countries. In addition, public policy implementation absorbs a large portion of countries' budgets. In addition, Africa is rich in all sorts of natural resources ranging from arable land, freshwater resources, oil, natural gas, minerals, forests, and wildlife. Despite this, even citizens in richer African countries still face poverty and inequality. Current research about the 5C protocol (which later became the 6C and then the 7C protocol has left a profound gap between why policy succeeds or fails in Africa. This paper undertakes a critical document content analysis of articles about why public policies succeed or fail to fill the gap in knowledge about the socio-economic, cultural and historical context that affects public policy implementation success or failure on the African continent.This research identifies ten causes of public policy implementation failure, including poor leadership, governance, and competent public managers, and suggests recommendations for improving policy implementation success in the African context.