Ubuntu for global policy and resource management: why social solidarity is a vital asset for the 21st century

Eva Coulibaly-Willis

At a time where the cause-and-effect burden of climate change is more imbalanced than ever, how can leaders and thinkers engage more productively with innovative African value systems? 

In attempt to answer this question, the Institute for Global Prosperity’s latest working paper, ‘Ubuntu and African approaches to prosperity,’ examines the philosophical underpinnings of environmental and social protection policy. At a time where the cause-and-effect burden of climate change is more imbalanced than ever, the paper unpacks the philosophy of ubuntu as a framing mechanism through which care, responsibility and justice could be reassessed. 

In the 21st century, global communities are inextricably connected by webs of relatedness that make up our respective habits of work, consumption and belonging, yet approaches to social and environmental protection have still been dominated by linear, industrial ‘development’ narratives for more than forty years. Top-down approaches uncritical of their Western epistemological origins constrain the way international leaders and their communities can value the natural environment, engage with vital networks of social solidarity, and even approach decolonising efforts. 

 Knowledge systems built around inclusion and mutuality are needed to frame environmental injustices as more than just the misfortunate underbelly to economic ‘growth’.1  Rooted in Southern Africa,2 ubuntu is commonly associated with the well-known proverb – ubuntu ngumuntu nga bantu, ‘a person becomes a person through other persons’.3 Under the foundational premise that ‘my humanity is inherently bound up with yours,’ your deprivation thus becomes an issue that is fundamentally mine. 

While traced as far back as four thousand years on the continent, in the last thirty years ubuntu has emerged as a noteworthy principle shaping post-colonial independence movements, the end of Apartheid rule, and pan Africanist identity politics on the global stage. 

But what are the implications of expanding this ancient African philosophy across our diverse planet into 2025 and beyond? And how is it being implemented practically? Our working paper addresses the importance of ubuntu in decolonising the social sciences, shaping identity politics, reinforcing welfare mechanisms, and building a healthy environmental ethic. 

Ubuntu could be the radically inclusive guiding principle we need to address the complex social, technological and environmental challenges we face in the 21st century. 

Read the working paper by Henrietta Moore and Eva Coulibaly-Willis here