ON THE HEAVY BURDEN OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICA

Abstract

Developing Africa has continued to be an issue that requires attention of development scholars, both indigenous and western. Western scholars and development experts have accused indigenousAfrican development scholars of being very ethnocentric as they uncritically localize issues of development, thus making development of Africa a heavy burden. These indigenous Africans are referred to as culture particularists while the western scholars in their acclaimed refined approach to development are called the culture Universalists. It is the finding of this paper that both divides are laced with some forms of ethnocentrism and such orientations constitute the heavy burden of developing Africa; the former is not dynamic enough to accommodate values from other cultures while the latter assumes so much culture superiority to the extent that the values of the so-called developing cultures are insignificant in the development agenda. Adopting the methods of hermeneutics and analysis, this work argues that development agenda would be ineffective if African peculiarities are jettisoned in the name of one imagined and imposed global village. It concluded that lifting the burden of developing Africa lies in advancing development policies, programmes and strategies that are rooted in the pristine and positive values ofAfrican cultures while accommodating the progressive ones from the West, not the reverse situation currently operational in development programmes and policies inAfrica.