Afro-centrism: The challenge of social development

Abstract

Social development has ushered in an ideology emphasising equality of all people, social justice, human rights, access to services, opportunities and resources, and more importantly, the new drive towards poverty reduction. However, social development as a community-driven process takes place within a national and international context. Thus, in the African context, despite the efforts to use local knowledge, norms, values, skills and technology, social development must take into account external factors that affect local development. The article, therefore, discusses the challenges of social development based on African values. It also examines the prospects of balancing local and foreign values, and norms that often seem contradictory. For example, can social development be reconceptualised with botho or ubuntu ("humanness") as a core organising principle in a neo-liberal political and economic context?