Indigenous Knowledge and Africa’s Quest for Sustainable Development

Abstract

In Africa’s quest for sustainable development, it is important to consider the various factors that make African societies unique and different from others. As a people with special interests, beliefs, and social and political organizations which are culturally transient, Africa cannot develop outside the scope of its cultural ties. Since the gap between indigenous or cultural knowledge and sustainable development is so closely knitted, no society can progress by neglecting its values and bonds. Every development comes with the need to improve the existing condition, and where there is an absolute lack of knowledge of the existing condition of things, every effort directed toward the development of such a society will inevitably fail because the system will only be working on a trial-and-error basis. Hence, Africa’s sustainable development must be construed within the ambience of African society taking cognizance of her communal way of life. In this paper, therefore, we shall argue that the major problem for the technological, economic, social, and political backwardness of Africa lies in her attempt to attain sustainable development without recourse to its rich cultural knowledge. The paper adopts both the speculative and analytic methods of philosophical investigation to affirm the position that Africa must look inward in her quest to attain sustainable development.