Paper short abstract:

This article proposes to examine the contribution of local know-how in the construction of participatory development in Africa. Emphasis will be given to the specific role of local know-how, in particular their participation in development.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to study how much local know-how can contribute considerably to the development of Africa. Ineluctably, the crisis that Africa has been experiencing since the 1980s is a crisis of its development models (Jean Marc Ela: 1998), which is materialized by the persistence of underdevelopment. This crisis has only exposed the inefficiency of outward-looking development policies and the incompatibility between these development models and the African environment. Therefore, the questions that are mainly presented in research on development in Africa focus more on endogenous issues. Hence the need to rethink development mechanisms in Africa at a time when we are witnessing the constant exhaustion of externalized models. In this perspective, local know-how then becomes a prospect of a credible solution to the fight against poverty. This article proposes to examine the contribution of local know-how in the construction of participatory development in Africa. Emphasis will be given to the specific role of local know-how, in particular their participation in development. We will analyze what makes their authenticity, through the processes and contents that can be mobilized for this purpose.