Teetering on Africa’s development trajectories - a search for an African alternative

Date
2018-06
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Abstract
This article analyses the so-called key drivers of development in post-colonial Africa in the contexts of African leaders’ conceptualisation thereof. It exposes the divergent concepts of development that have appeared to uniformly retard Africa’s progress. The article acknowledges the myriad of institutional factors such as leadership, corruption and neo-patrimonialism that have contributed to post-colonial Africa’s development challenges. In pursued of its argument, the article’s approach is explorative and descriptive, thereby justifying the adoption of qualitative literature assessment methodology. Theoretically, the article holds a Pan-Africanist worldview wherefrom Africanism is central to all development. It is worth noting that not much scholarship has been done within the fields of Public Administration and Management on how modernisation as a theory has created a scope for elite accumulation in post-colonial states on the African continent. This article is an attempt to close the gap in scholarly discourse with regard to Africa’s development trajectories. Due to the multiplicity and complexities of Africa itself, there can be no universal monolithic description of Africanism; hence, the article recommends that post-colonial Africa’s development process should, starting with the determination of philosophical orientation, planning and policy decisions, embrace public participation.
Description
CITATION: Breakfast, N., Mekoa, I. & Theletsane, I. 2018. eetering on Africa’s development trajectories - a search for an African alternative. African Journal of Public Affairs, 10(4):17-34.
The original publication is available at https://journals.co.za/content/journal/ajpa
Keywords
Post-colonial Africa, Economic development, Africas development -- Afrika's development, Africanism -- Pan-Africanism, Country development
Citation
Breakfast, N., Mekoa, I. & Theletsane, I. 2018. eetering on Africa’s development trajectories - a search for an African alternative. African Journal of Public Affairs, 10(4):17-34.