Africa’s Underdevelopment amidst Global Pressures: Is Good Governance Attainable?

Abstract

It is undeniable that Africa’s under-development problems do not only emanate from the colonial legacy, they are also exacerbated by global pressures that place unnecessary demands on African countries. Some of these demands relate to aid and loans from the global north to the south, such as the need for good governance reforms. The lack of political will and pragmatic leadership are some of the major contributors to bad governance in Africa. Though Africa’s problems includes poor leadership and resource mismanagement, the underdevelopment stems from misplaced priorities. The questions lie in the extent to which some of these problems are either a preservation of the African way of life or are importations. With the colonial spread and successive peripheralization of traditional African societies and organs of governance, it has become evident that it is difficult to westernize Africa and its institutions of supremacy such as “traditional leadership,” which still sway the socio-cultural practices of the people. Hence, the consequential annihilation of the role these traditional institutions play has added to the expurgation of the understanding and knowledge of how they operate. Thus, the quest for good governance in Africa as imposed by the west, which is a significant departure from Africanity, is as daunting as ever. This research employed content data analysis and the authors concluded that unless African countries overcome their lack of identity and economic dependence, good governance will not be stained for a long time on the continent.