Revisiting the Colonial Grammar of International Development in Sub-Saharan Africa Revisiting the Colonial Grammar of International Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This article traced the concept of international development to the condescending, Eurocentric mission of civilizing the so-called Third World, including Africa. This perspective served as the template for Western development thinking, which informed Harry Truman's Point Four Program for countering the threats that the poverty of the underdeveloped world posed to their Western, developed counterparts. While sub-Saharan Africa, by default, is synonymous with the century-old colonial definition of underdevelopment, this article contributes to the clarion call to redefining development in Africans' own terms and cultural relevance. The paper argues for a twinlineal, Afrocentric approach to revisiting the colonial grammar of androcentric development. This course must be charted by pragmatic leaders who appreciate the nexus between gender and health as critical pathways to the application of decoloniality as the method toward an agentic, sustainable development thinking in sub-Saharan Africa.

Keywords

international development Trumanism colonial grammar decoloniality sub-Saharan Africa praxis

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