DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2018.v06i06.009

Pages: 1238-1244

Many sub-Saharan African countries are increasingly becoming concerned about fostering sustainable national development. As many of these countries are strategizing on how to improve their economy and other measures of development, it is important to highlight the vital role of language as a tool for fostering sustainable development in society. This paper is an attempt to explore how the diverse linguistic resources of Africa could be deployed in this direction.The first section of the paper introduces and establishes its overall area of concern. It also provides an explanation of the link between ‘language’ and ‘sustainable development.’ Section two examines the language situation in Africa, based on a case study of Nigeria. It is indicated clearly that African societies are generally multilingual, and that there is a linguistic discrepancy: the language of governance is not the same as the language of the governed. In section three, it is argued that only when new ideas are communicated, when technology transfer is done, in the indigenous African languages that Africans can begin to witness increased participation in the development discourse. The major argument of the paper are summed up in section four where it is argued that since language is at the heart of the process of inclusive and sustainable development because, the teaching and use of African languages should be strengthen. This is because these languages serve as the vehicles for the promotion of literacy which is clearly the single most important indicator of a country’s journey into the top-tier economies of the world.