Delivering lifelong learning for sustainable development in Southern Africa: problems and prospects

Southern African Development Community (SADC) nations in principle endorse lifelong learning (LLL) as a useful framework for sustainable development. However, in spite of the rhetoric, only a few member states such as South Africa, Botswana and Namibia have officially endorsed LLL in their educational policies. The sub-region is plagued by social atrocities such as HIV/AIDS, capacity poverty, low quality education, global marginalization, ineffective pedagogical and civil society agencies. The paper argues that since 1994, SADC has transited from being preoccupied with fighting Apartheid to focus on regional development, it experienced structural adjustment policies and is currently playing a critical role in pursuit of African renaissance. The region faces challenges such as centralization of educational planning, lack of a concerted culture of democratic participation, failure to recognize cultural diversity, and poor civil society engagement. The paper contends that LLL would help SADC countries to decentralize educational decision-making, engage communities in democratic discourses, train facilitators to reflective practitioners and engage the civil society in facilitating the attainment of regional sustainable development agenda.