UBUNTU - AN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE ON LIFESTYLES

Africa`s contribution to new and creative lifestyles is based on processes of production and consumption that are people-centred and which meet their material as well as social and spiritual needs. The philosophy of Ubuntu grows out of the organic relationship between the majority of the people, their spiritual roots and the natural world, and rests on the following insights:

• - humanity is an integral part of eco-systems, leading to communal responsibility to sustain life.
• - human worth is based on social, cultural and spiritual criteria and competence rather than conventional market-based conceptions.
• - natural resources are shared on principle of equity among and between generations.

Strategies based on these principles have been instrumental in sustaining a certain quality of material and spiritual life in African communities facing situations of scarcity and marginalisation. The Ubuntu perspective could serve to enrich the search in the North for its own viable patterns of consumption.

International South Group Network, South Africa, January 1995