Sorting Africa's Developmental Puzzle: The Participatory Social Learning Theory as an Alternative Approach

by Almaz Zewde PhD, assistant professor,

Overview

Sorting Africa's Development Puzzle: The Participatory Social Learning Theory as an Alternative Approach is a comprehensive exploration of why Africa has not managed to achieve a sustainable and self-regenerating development over the past half-century of effort. The work situates the problems of Africa's persistent underdevelopment in the practices employed by national political elites, donors, and lenders to African development that played roles in determinant policy and planning.
Unlike many newly developed countries and regions, and contrary to the historical experiences of developed countries where ordinary people were full stakeholders and drivers of development, Africa's development has been top-down, expert and capital driven, mechanical, and typically externally designed. Ordinary Africans were made marginal to development.
This approach to Africa's development was devoid of building the people and their institutions as the legitimate means of development. The entrusting of Africa's development to local and international elites to the exclusion of the people from decision-making and full participation, has led to grievous deficits in the formation of human and social capital, and legitimate economic, social, and political institutions for development. The book offers a studied alternative that can positively change Africa's development direction - The Participatory Social Learning Approach. The philosophical, theoretical, historical and heuristic origins of this alternative are offered in detail within this book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761849070
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	06/02/2010
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Almaz Zewde teaches at the Department of African Studies at Howard University. She came to Howard with extensive teaching and research experiences in the United States, including teaching and research at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and Michigan State University, as well as at Haile Selassie I University (now Addis Ababa University) in Ethiopia. Zewde gained experiences in African and international development while working as a consultant to international organizations, as a Rural Development Correspondent with the Economic Commission for Africa (United Nations), and serving in successive development and planning positions at various Ethiopian governmental and non-governmental organizations prior to coming to the United States.

Table of Contents

Preface v

Acknowledgments ix

Acronyms xi

Introduction 1

1 Selected Development Theories: Some Post-World War II Theoretical Contests 23

2 The Alternative Development Theory: The Participatory Social Learning Development Theory and Model for Africa 47

3 The Institutional Imperative: Its Condition in Africa and Implications for Development 68

4 The Human Resources Imperative 99

5 The Resource Imperative: Natural and Man-enhanced Resources for Development 127

6 The Technology Imperative 131

7 The Investment Capital Imperative 145

8 Putting Together the Development Puzzle: The Participatory Social Learning Paradigm and the Five Development Imperatives in Practice: Case Studies 157

9 African Women: The Continent's Undervalued and Overworked Development Assets 187

10 Looking Ahead: Some After Thoughts 212

References 233

Index 249