Inclusive governance for sustainable development in Africa

of the convergence of these trends over nearly a decade is the need to rethink the relationship between development and sustainability transition.Although Scoones, Leach and Newell (2015) make a significant contribution in this regard the focus in this chapter is not on the development-sustainability nexus in general.Instead, the focus is more on sustainability transitions and 'developmental states' -the latter usually regarded as having a historic mission to accelerate the development and modernisation processes in the spirit of 'catch up' (Evans, 2010).Building on earlier work with similar aims (see Swilling and Annecke, 2012, Chapter 5), this chapter argues that we need to draw on the well-established literature on the developmental state (DS) and sustainability transitions (ST) in order to better understand the challenge of combining development strategies and commitments to ecological sustainability that many states in Africa now face since the adoption of the SDGs.This synthesis, in turn, needs to be brought into conversation with the African literature on 'governance for development' .Given the contested nature of the term 'development' , it is necessary to declare a specific point of departure.For this purpose, I favour the following definition of development by Castells and Himanen:Development … is the self-defined social process by which humans enhance their well-being and assert their dignity while creating the structural conditions for the sustainability of the process of development itself.(Castells & Himanen, 2014:29) This definition is useful because wellbeing rather than gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is at the centre.Following Sen (1999), this definition of development is not derived from an abstract categorical imperative but from the everyday processes of 'self-definition' via dialogical engagement, which are of course context-specific.However, these acts of becoming are inseparable from the wider process of structural change to ensure the longer-term sustainability of development processes.But the former is not conditioned by the latter -instead, the latter is the emergent outcome of the continuous struggles over the terms of the development process itself.Of course, this is not how 'Development' (with a big 'D') is usually officially defined in mainstream narratives (Nederveen-Pieterse, 2000).Nevertheless, this is, most certainly, 'development' (with a small 'd') as a process of mutual flourishing within communities of human and non-human beings.For some, this takes us into what is referred to in the Latin American literature as 'postdevelopment' (Escobar, 2015), while for others it implies 'degrowth' (D' Alisa, Demaria & Kallis, 2015) or 'alternative development' (Nederveen-Pieterse, 2000).Either way, wellbeing and a relational perspective seem to be what is common across nearly all perspectives that break with 'Development' (big 'D').