Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T17:49:21.871Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Non-Governmental Agencies and Their Role in Development in Africa: A Case Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Absolom L. Vilakazi
Absolom L. Vilakazi*
Affiliation:
The American University, Washington, D. C.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The purpose of this study is to examine the problems of development in Africa. The word “development” is used here in a much broader sense than in the accustomed meaning assigned to it by an economist seeing it narrowly as economic growth. It is used here to encompass social growth by which I mean not only the development of new social institutions and cultural forms in keeping with modernization and the development of a technological civilization in Africa, but also the development of social attitudes, skills, and, if you will, “mental sets” which will favor modernization in the economic field, in education, in politics, and in religion. In my view, the demands for modernization are such that they will challenge traditional cultural norms, values, and prejudices. I do not assume here that the adoption of modernity will necessarily condemn all traditional values and social forms. I only assume that the challenge of modernity will be so thorough-going that no area of African life will go unchallenged. The values and institutions which will show themselves adaptable will survive while those which fail to pass the test of usefulness and meaningfulness will be discarded. In my view, there is nothing to worry about in this, for, as I have had occasion to poinṭ out before (Vilakazi 1957), there is neither moral nor intellectual excellence in a people's sticking to the past merely because it belongs to their forefathers.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , September 1970 , pp. 169 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES CITED

Bookers (Zambia) Ltd. Notes on Management Development Programme 1967/70. Lusaka: Bookers, 1970.Google Scholar
Busia, K. A. Africa in Search of Democracy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967.Google Scholar
Carr, E. H. What Is History? New York: Knopf, 1962.Google Scholar
Castro, Josue de. The Geography of Hunger. Boston: Little, Brown, 1952.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. Thought and Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Inkeles, Alex. “The Soviet Union: Model for Asia?—The Social System.” Problems of Communism, Vol. VIII, No. 6 (November-December 1959).Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation. New York: Rinehart, 1944.Google Scholar
Vilakazi, Absolom L. “A Reserve from Within.” African Studies, XVI, 2 (1957), 93–101.Google Scholar
World Council of Churches. The Churches and Socio-Economic Development in the Third World. Quoted from the draft, 1965.Google Scholar
Zambia. Report of the Brown Commission of Inquiry into the Mining Industry. Lusaka: Government Printer, 1966.Google Scholar