Indigenous Technology for Sustainable Development in West Africa

Abstract

Technology is the scientific application of knowledge, skills and resources for the purpose of meeting the needs and aspirations of a people. It refers to a device, tool or piece of equipment. Technology designed and fabricated based on the culture, tradition and needs of a people and which is adopted for use in the environment of those people is called indigenous technology (IT). One vital characteristic peculiar to IT is that through meaningful interactions, it seeks to engage and evoke significant knowledge and experiences reflective of the indigenous world. West Africa and indeed the whole of Africa possess a vast amount of indigenous technologies (ITs) and knowledge which are embodied in the continent’s cultural and ecological diversities. For instance, several communities in Nigeria, just like the Aboriginal people of Australia, have IT items such as tools and implements, weapons, boomerangs, nets, baskets and bags, as well as watercraft and canoes. In Africa, these items can be harnessed to meet international standards. If they are properly harnessed, they stimulate industrial development and domestic capacity building, impose checks on imports so that local industries can grow, and propel a nation to attain technological self-reliance. Indigenous technology and knowledge are relevant to such sectors and strategies as agriculture, preventive medicine, community development and poverty alleviation. One key impediment to the development of IT is the low patronage it has received from governments and citizens. African peoples seem to have a penchant for foreign technologies. However, because of the fact that such technologies were not designed peculiar to the African environment, they are often confronted with the problem of spare parts, knowledge of the design principles and maintenance and repairs.  Indigenous knowledge which forms the bedrock of effective IT development is facing extinction, occasioned largely by the absence of strong mechanism for ensuring that such knowledge is passed on from generation to generation. More so, IT fabricators and developers lack effective mechanism for market promos and for guaranteeing their protection. In order to enhance indigenous technologies and knowledge, governments of West African countries, just like India, need to form strategic alliances between them and the indigenous technology developers. Governments can purchase the indigenously developed products and can as well promote them in such a way that they make in-roads into the global market.

Keywords: Technology, indigenous knowledge, indigenous technology