Democracy and Development Nexus and the Intermediation Role of Development Communication in Africa

Abstract

Democracy that potentially has the capacity for enhancing the responsiveness, accountability and transparency of the state seems to be at the heart of development. Arguably, democracy and development have an association, because the former facilitates the latter. In the face of efforts at democratic enterprise, consolidation and representative governance in Africa, democracy appears to be a mirage to the extent that it is largely flawed, fragile and fledgling. This study that relied on valuable secondary sources of data contended that while democracy and development have a cause and effect relationship, the relationship is not unilaterally a one-way directional one and therefore there is no straight-line correlation between them. The study equally canvassed for the intermediation role of development communication because democracy is a necessary and not a sufficient condition for development in Africa. The study concluded that development communication is a desideratum because it is a catalyst and an impetus for the actualization of the democracy potency in the African development agenda.

Keywords: Democracy, development, intermediation, communication, Africa.