Universities, society, and development in Africa: setting the scene

Abstract

The American sociologist and politician, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, famously once said, "if you want to build a great city, create a great university and wait 200 years" (in Shapiro, 2015). Many great cities have started as college towns and many great regions have developed with universities at their centre. Phenomena such as Silicon Valley and Route 128, along with the development of concepts such as 'learning cities', 'innovation district' and 'anchor institutions' in diverse ways reflect Moynihan's argument of the central role that universities and other knowledge institutions can play in urban and regional development (Keane & Allison, 1999; Lawrence, Hogan & Brown, 2019; Saxenian, 1994). While these concepts have largely dominated the literature on university community engagement, it provides an opportunity to revisit the relationship between universities and societies within the African landscape. When the university was being established in Africa in the wake of national independence, the expectation in most African states was to create institutions relevant to their immediate society. Coleman (1986) observes that while universities in other parts of the world such as Japan, the Soviet Union, and the land grant universities in the United States of America (USA) were established to support national development imperatives, the drive of developmentalism in Africa was insistent and engulfing.