Language as a driving tool for the implementation of African Union’s Agenda 2063

Abstract

Language is one of the major drivers of human development. This paper critically reviews the Sixth Edition of the African Union Handbook (2019) and regrettably observes that conveners of the African Union’s Agenda 2063, a fifty (50) year incubation framework to overhaul the socio-politico-cultural and economic fortunes of the continent, erroneously failed to take a categorical decision on the particular language(s) to aid in the implementation process of the project. Accordingly, the paper recommends that instead of investing huge resources on over 2000 indigenous African languages to create awareness for the implementation of the Agenda, such resources should be used to promote the teaching and learning of the four official languages of the AU. The recommendation is predicated on the fact that sizeable populations of AU Member States already use these four official languages (Arabic, English, French and Portuguese) which are also global languages thereby making it easier, cheaper and faster to implement.