Globalization, Consumerism and the Challenge of Sustainable Development in Africa

Abstract

Globalization is an uneven process, and Africa has benefitted from it marginally. It creates enormous wealth and advances research and technological development in countries that produce technologies while deepening poverty and underdevelopment in countries that do not produce but consume those technologies. Nowhere is this oxymoron of globalization more evident than in economic relations between Africa and the industrialized West and Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, China and India. One of the greatest inimical fallouts of globalization in Africa is the rising culture of consumerism. Globalization has exported mass consumption of goods and services to Africa without promoting mass production attitude which is necessary for Africa’s development. Hence most Africans today crave for the latest cars, laptops, smart phones and other technological revolution, yet there is little or no effort to produce them in the continent. Globalization appears to be encouraging Africa not to think, but to allow the industrialized world to do the thinking and technological invention for her. In this way Africa is further exploited and dominated, and globalization seems to be energized by these exploitation and domination. This paper argues that the on-going globalization process has made Africa to be complacent with consuming and not producing. It has created consumerist culture which is increasingly reinforcing dependency in Africa and hindering the continent's quest for sustainable development.

Keywords: globalization, Consumerism, Albatross, Sustainable development, Africa