Abstract
This article argues that in order for Africa to kick-start development, which
must include poverty alleviation and job creation, the policy-makers and
researchers on the continent must decolonise all the ideas and knowledge
which do not privilege an understanding of the African socio-cultural and
economic condition. This article deploys insights from the narrative of
decoloniality and the coloniality of knowledge in particular, in order to unpack
and interrogate the idea of the modernisation theory of development.
The article concludes that narratives of development on the continent as
contained in the modernisation theory should be realigned with an African
epistemology. Such development narrative should be able to envisage that
the challenges of poverty and under-development on the continent can
only be eradicated by a narrative that is African and based on good governance.
The article uses a conceptual research methodology to analyse and
critique the negative effects of applying modernisation theory as a policy
option in the sub-region.