ABSTRACT

The chapter underlines the fact that much of development ethics might be a concern of all societies. There is a critical need for a sub-Saharan African development ethics agenda in the post-colonial era. Its relevance extends from concerns of national and international development, the African development debate, the enviable appropriation of an ethical toolkit in managing development issues, and ownership of African development processes among other topics. Development ethics about Africa may be conveniently divided into two categories of the ‘conventionalists’ who avoid African traditional metaphysics and epistemology as a basis for development and ‘Africanists’ who assume these systems. Africanists critiqued neo-colonialist models of development as they re-defined and re-asserted African identity. They advocated for socialism contending that it was a derivative of African pre-colonial social- political-economic system describable as African communalism. It is also argued that irrespective of the novelty of development ethics, there are strong indications that it is beginning to take root at various levels, including at universities, within organisations, and with individual scholars. Nonetheless, there remains a lot be done to entrench development ethics in relation to development conversation and practice.