Unleashing the Power of Knowledge for Meeting MDGs and Sustainable Development in Africa: Fundamental Issues for Governance

Abstract

"Knowledge is becoming the chief currency of the modern age and a decisive resource for sustainable development. This paper discusses the current state of knowledge in Africa as it relates to the radical transformations that are necessary to achieve a rapid and meaningful transition to sustainable development on the continent. This transition is far from being on track for at least half of Africa and it desperately needs a boost from science and technology. In fact, the region may be losing the global knowledge race that characterises the development effort at the beginning of this ‘Knowledge Millennium’. Various types of knowledge are considered and assessed and critical knowledge challenges are formulated. The role of scientific and technical knowledge is particularly emphasised as the main driver of socioeconomic progress and the potential contribution of indigenous and mythological knowledge is also stressed. The paper calls for a profound reform of knowledge based on the premise that freedom is the infinite fountain of knowledge."

Published by the Economic Commission for Africa in June 2005, this paper explores the concept of knowledge as a strategic weapon. According to the writer, knowledge as a weapon for sustainable development evokes the idea of power, target, advantage, defense, struggle, rivalry, intelligence gathering, technology, conquest, annihilation, obliteration and demolition. In the context of this paper the target may include the inefficient knowledge bases that keep nearly half of Africans incapable of meeting their basic needs, incapable of meeting key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and in need of international assistance.

Used defensively it may be applied to the protection of African countries against the forces of globalisation on endemic, traditional, or local knowledge. Used offensively it may address the upgrading of indigenous knowledge for producing goods and services that Africans demand. It may also address some non-enabling mythological faith-based knowledge that results from the colonisation of large parts of Africa, which started centuries before the European colonisation. It may address the construction of productive and competitive capacities to face up a number of daunting contemporary challenges. As suggested by the author, these are embodied in MDGs and in the sustainable development concept. A weapon also evokes the idea of empowerment and of social control over its generation, its development, its maintenance, its distribution, its concentration, its monopolisation, its protection and its utilisation. These are some of the issues that are investigated in this paper.

"The paper critically reflects on the notion of knowledge, African knowledge, African knowledge economies (AKEs), African knowledge societies (AKSs) and African knowledge policies for sustainable development. Its purpose is to contribute to sustainable development thinking in the African region and open a new front in the development discourse. War against unsustainable development can be won with more potent knowledge."

The paper is divided into nine sections:

• Section 2 discusses the hyper-complex concepts of knowledge as they relate to sustainable development. It provides new ways for the appreciation and evaluation of knowledge and its sustainability as a resource is theorised.
• Section 3 deals with issues related to knowledge evolution and adaptation and to the long-drawn-out, makeshift and wavering transition to meeting MDGs. It emphasises the crucial role of scientific, technological and technical knowledge, which can provide a hope and a boost for sustainable development and which must become an obsession for the acceleration of this transition.
• Section 4 discusses issues related to knowledge innovation, circulation, migration, acquisition, repatriation, utilisation, prospection, devaluation and proliferation.
• Section 5 discusses issues related to the integration of compartmented layers of knowledge, the fragmentation of knowledge bases, knowledge ghettos and their integration through knowledge institutions, associations, academies, forums, portals, media, networks and centers.
• Section 6 deals with issues related to knowledge constellation, clustering, designs, linkages and packaging, including a knowledge package to achieve the African Green Revolution (AGR) - a scientific and technological achievement and a sine qua non condition of sustainable development.
• Section 7 discusses the values underpinning this knowledge in relation to their contribution (or non-contribution) to sustainable development. It argues for the need to demythologise / remythologise common, ordinary and trivial knowledge.
• Section 8 explores other fundamental determinants of sustainable development and new avenues for knowledge emancipation and liberation that can power sustainable development.
• Section 9 concludes on the need to thermodynamise knowledge (hot, bubbling knowledge culture) and on the special role and responsibility of knowledge elites, leaders, champions and lovers in bringing about a culture of freedom, enabling environments and scientific mentalities for a complete decolonisation of knowledge and for innovative changes.