Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | African Opportunities in the Transition to a Knowledge Economy |
Author: | Wilson, Peter |
Year: | 1998 |
Periodical: | African Development Review |
Volume: | 10 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | June |
Pages: | 150-161 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Africa |
Subjects: | information technology technology Development and Technology Economics and Trade Education and Oral Traditions |
External link: | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8268.1998.tb00101.x/pdf |
Abstract: | This article examines the future knowledge economy and the opportunities it presents for Africa. Information and communications technology (ICT) is the vehicle through which values and wealth will be created in the future, and the future polarization of society will increasingly be along the lines of the knowledge rich and the knowledge poor, both within countries and between countries and communities. Necessary conditions for Africa's successful adoption of opportunities afforded by the transition to a knowledge economy are an affordable, accessible, state of the art communications infrastructure, appropriate technological and management education and training, and an enabling and motivating economic environment. At the same time, there is a vast store of informal knowledge in Africa which is not being given its rightful status because it does not conform to norms derived from Western values. Africans need to have confidence in their own knowledge, whether formal or tacit, and establish their rightful place as centres of expertise in specific knowledge domains, whilst exploiting the explosion of opportunities afforded by the global transfer and trade in knowledge. Sum. in English and French. |