The role of language policy in poverty alleviation in West Africa

Abstract

In spite of being home to many treasured raw materials and natural resources, West Africa harbors some of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, about half of the poorest countries in Africa are located in West Africa, and most of her citizens are afflicted by poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy. Several economic intervention schemes by international financial institutions (such as the World Bank, IMF, ADB) have failed because of a lack of understanding and interpreting of such schemes by a majority of West Africans. Although indigenous West African languages have been central to the processes of production and distribution in the informal sector of the economy, they are excluded in the formal economy. Even more fundamentally problematic is that knowledge and skills are almost exclusively imparted in European languages. The continued use of the ex-colonial languages (namely, English, French and Portuguese in the formal economy, which are understood by less than 20 percent of the population), amounts to economic exclusion for the majority of the people. Since language capital itself is an economic resource that can be harnessed to provide employment opportunities particularly for translators, interpreters, teachers and publishers, there is a need for the development of the indigenous language capital in order to spread resources beyond the few West Africans who are literate in the ex-colonial languages. The present study highlights the role of micro language planning in poverty alleviation within the West African sub-region through the development of the indigenous language capital and the reduction of illiteracy and disease. It does this against the backdrop of the Millennium Development Goals.