Locating Sustainable Development In Africa: Discourses on Ekegusii and Lubukusu Proverbs in Kenya.

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the pertinence of cultural knowledge as an indispensable tool for sustainable development and the attainment of the millennium goals. The formally schooled populace is seen to lay a lot of emphasis on information technology and globalization as they ignore and neglect culture and informal education; this has resulted to a total mismatch in the cultural and socio-economic orientation of the citizenry consequently leading to loss of identification of self and the inability to effectively focus on the attainment of sustainable development and the millennium goals. The study analysed the EkeGusii and LuBukusu teaching on self-reliance and development; investigated the extent to which cultural knowledge is a useful tool in presenting the development agenda and pursuance of the sustainable development goals, and discussed the success of integration of cultural knowledge and modern information technology and innovation in attaining the millennium development goals. Ethnography was used to sample and analyse from EkeGusii and LuBukusu a total of thirty proverbs that emphasise on the value of hard work and sustainability. The data was analysed basing on the tenets of the Cultural Literacy theory and Critical Discourse Analysis. Emphasis of cultural knowledge among Africans was realised to be a vital component in propelling self-reliance, realisation of sustainable development and achievement of the millennium goals. It concluded that there is need to integrate indigenous knowledge with information technology and modern knowledge to enable faster realisation of self-reliance, sustainable development and the achievement of the millennium goals.