Journal of Social Development in Africa (1987), 2,2, 5-25 
Radicalising Roles for Africa's 
Development: Some Evolving Practice 
Issues * 
Dr E MAXINE ANKRAH + 
ABSTRACT 
This paper offers a criticism of modernisation and dependency schools of 
thought which have retarded the ability of social work to contribute in a 
meaningful way to the solution of Africa's many problems. A move from a 
residual to a radical paradigm is urged, reflecting five key dimensions which 
together offer a blueprint for a way forward. Radical developmental social 
work of an interdisciplinary nature, guided by informed, forward-thinking 
profesionals and grounded in African realities may be the only answer if the 
profession is to survive into the next century. Perhaps only then will the social 
workers be able to produce a practice that meets Africa's requirements and 
one that deals effectively with the major concerns faced by the African peoples. 
Introduction 
To create and to translate knowledge from sociology and anthropology into 
prescriptions that can be applied to Africa's development efforts is 
problematic. This is doubly so when the task is attempted by an applied 
discipline. Yet, this is the fact that must be accomplished by the professionals 
of social work, a field that draws extensively and eclectically from the social 
sciences to derive its knowledge base. Its practice requires theoretical models 
as explanatory tools and for some of its interventions. But there is increasing 
evidence that the approaches adopted so far have proved inadequate to propel 
social work into the development activity of African nations. Rather, it 
continues to be regarded as marginal, if not ignored altogether, as an 
instrumentality for change and develoment in the Region. 
* Paper presented at a organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern Africa (OSSREA) 
Workshop at Addis Ababa, April 1986. 
+ Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Makerere University, P.O. Box 706Z 
Kampala, Uganda.
6 Maxinz Ankrah 
The literature from African and other Third World policy-makers and 
social science educators suggest that modernisation theories have largely 
guided their national development programmes. This may reflect an 
uncritical acceptance by the social scientists of perceptions formulated in the 
west. For a cataloguing of some of the more familiar problems of Africa - eg, 
rural and urban poverty, famines, resource scarcities, lack of opportunities for 
work, education and health care in addition to ethnic conflicts, wars, 
corruption and indebtedness - reflect not so much modernisation but 
conditions of underdevelopment which, it is held here, tend to perpetuate 
Africa's dependence on western solutions. 
Moreover, the modernisation framework for social work's involvement in 
development may have been a deficient guide because it has overshadowed 
due consideration of why such conditions of underdevelopment and 
dependancy persist. African social work literature has neglected this latter 
theoretical framework almost completely. Below, the need is argued for 
structuring a practice that takes seriously the implications of Africa's 
dependency vis-a-vis the industrialised nations. 
It is assumed that this factor ties social work to approaches having the 
effect of nibbling away at the fringe of major problems without making an 
impact on the lives of Africa's masses. It may lie behind the preoccupation by 
the profession with relative minutiae, eg with individual destitutes while the 
majority must cope with poverty and oppression, with the few orphans when 
millions of children die of malnutrition or disease, with the young juvenile 
delinquent although no solution is offered to the problems of hundreds of 
school leavers. Neither the modernisation nor the dependency paradigm alone 
provides sufficient direction for the change required. Highlighting the dearth 
of attention given by the profession to a critical alternative explanation of the 
conditions that social work should attend is, firstly, to pose the question: why 
has the profession in Africa accepted a western definition of what constitutes 
social work when its ensuing concerns seems so incongruous with the more 
glaring problem of the region? It is to provide the springboard, secondly, to 
propose that a more radicalised social work be established if social work in 
Africa is to become more developmental. 
An explanation is provided at the outset of the way the term radicalisation is 
being used here. The underlying concern is whether the historical, inherited 
social work model, with a preoccupation with problems rather than change, 
can actually foster a differing mode of intervening. If the answer is in die 
negative despite efforts at modernisation, then in light of Africa's 
underdevelopment, breaking through to new models radier than tinkering 
with old ones would seem the more preferred way ahead. This necessitates a 
radicalisation that is little evident hitherto on the African social work scene.
Radicalising Roks 7 
This first section of the paper, therefore, proposes a potential framework to 
developmental social work. The paradigm assumes that designing for growth 
and positive planned change is the essential dynamic of development. This has 
implications for Africa's social work which currently serves basically 
maintenance and control functions. 
Radicalisation for development functions, on the other hand, implies that 
social work be flexible in order to determine the most satisfactory modus 
operandi for the situation at hand. This proposition leads to a consideration of 
a second major issue concerning the evolving of social work roles for 
devleopment, that is, practice leadership. As the gatekeepers to changes, the 
leaders - administrators, policy-makers, educators - have the task of designing 
and restructuring the profession. Radicalising practice therefore 
must encompass, if not begin with, the leadership of the profession, as in other 
spheres. 
Radicalisation — an an interdisciplinary function 
Education, it is generally conceded, is essential to development. However, 
there is a sense in which education may be viewed as being antidevelopmental. 
That is when education, cast in the western, British model, 
actually functions to frustrate a commitment to Africa's developpment. 
Barkun (1972) in a study of University students in Ghana, Tanzania and 
Uganda, showed that the education received socialised graduates to 
technocratic, implementor roles rather than to roles for development. They 
were conservers of the status quo more than agents of change. As the brainpower 
upon which Africa pinned much of its hopes for progress, the adversion 
of the educated elite to taking the risks that change and development imply 
thus represents a major dilemma. The dilemma that Barkun has identified 
suggests that practice issues are of impact beyond the single applied discipline 
of social work. 
Sociologists and anthropologists may take refuge in the argument that their 
mandate is the academic study of man and society rather than an attempt at 
ameliorating harmful conditions. Some questions might, therefore, suffice to 
rasie the issue of application, or practice, to the prominence it deserves. 
Where do the social science graduates produced by Africa's universities get 
jobs upon graduation? Is it not largely in the same bureaucracies of the public 
and private sectors? Do they not carry the same titles, have the same 
conditions of services and execute the same roles as those entering from the 
applied fields? It is argued that the paradigms adopted by social work, 
specifically, have confined it to a practice deemed inadequate. It is not possible 
that theories and tools proposed by the socialogists and anthropologists in 
terms of affecting real change and development are equally of litle or no
8 Maxine Ankrah 
impact? The deficiencies might actually be concealed because those disciplines 
are not put to the acid test, ie application to concrete situations. Social work 
should not be seen in isolation from the other social science disciplines for 
another reason. Its distinct identity, in other words, does not lie in the fact of 
its having no similarities in content and emphases. Like sociology, it must be 
concerned with root causes, development issues, and the functioning of social 
structures and institutions. The shared concerns do not cause social work to 
become applied sociology. What distinguishes it - no matter the particular 
emphases of practice - is that social work remains committed to concrete 
intervention into human systems so as to enhance social functioning. What is 
at issue in this paper is the question: who should define that distinctive 
identity? Should it be the African professionals from their perception of their 
realities? Or is there but one social work, and that fashioned after the western 
world view? To consider the former possibility is to dare to be radical. One of 
the aims of this paper is to challenge the members of the profession itself to 
redefine its identity and its mandate. Clearly, then, both the non-applied and 
the applied social scientists have a stake in exploring the issues that bear on the 
utilisation of paradigms for developmental roles. Further, it is in the interest of 
both to fashion a model that will in the broadest sense radicalise social work, 
since from its practice much about the efficacy of the application of 
sociological and anthropological theories can be learned. 
An outline of the prevailing model 
That delineating roles appropriate to development requires radicalisation 
suggests that in some of its essential attributes social work as it is now practiced 
in Africa is deficient. A synoptic view of the profession will bear this 
intimation out. A residual model of social work has been adopted which 
focuses upon the coping mechanisms of people. The targets are the marginal 
groups - the handicapped, the delinquents, the orphaned, the others 
disadvantaged in (and often by) the system in terms of income, shelter, food, 
and other basic needs. There is, thus, a concern with pathology, treatment, 
and adjustment. Baddu (1984) argues that this remedial approach to 
intervention is the 'soft face' of social control, deflecting deprived groups from 
taking radical action to remedy their situation. 
Current social work practice shows more serious limitations, still. Strategies 
that emphasise direct services have inevitably meant predominantly 
individualised activities. This scale of operation is at the bottom of, if not 
wholly perpetuates, the criticised inappropriate forms. And as individualised 
efforts, it relegates the profession to the periphery of planned change activity. 
These small scale change efforts - even the community development village 
level models - are rarely integrated into larger, national schemes. Thus, social 
policy formulation, planning and evaluation are perceived to be tasks beyond
Radicalising Roles 9 
the capacity of the profession. Social workers are therefore assigned to roles as 
implementers of the policies and plans shaped outside the profession. 
Further, social work has made no marked attempt, in terms of a new 
conceptualisation of its mandate, to better direct practice through the 
turbulent political, economic, social and cultural changes besetting Africa to 
date. Rather, in clinging to the traditional model, the profession appears to 
avoid issues inherent to development such as productivity, changing gender 
roles, people's participation, resource sufficiency, rural development.2 
In arguing for the universality of certain social work values through an 
advocacy of a generic model, the historical paradigm subtly downgrades 
values such as communism, spiritualism, etc, which undergird African social 
organisation. In effect, it removes them altogether from serious consideration 
as principles for guiding practice. A predetermination of those skills that must 
be applied, for the limited range of problems selected as the purview of the 
profession, and the marginalised clientele chosen, all which combine to give 
social work its unique character, implicitly limits modifications that can be 
made. In taking on a mandate assigned from outside the region, African social 
work indeed conforms to the conditions defined by Midgley (1981) as 
'professional imperialism' 
With the above description of the prevailing model, it is now possible to 
explain in what sense the radicalising of the intervention behaviours, or roles, 
of African social work professionals, is being suggested. 
The concept 
Radicalisation, acording to the dictionary usage, refers to a disposition to 
make a marked departure from the usual or the traditional, to make extreme 
changes in existing views, behaviours, conditions, or institutions. It is this 
general dictionary meaning, in the first instance, that is referred to here. By 
pointing to the substantial drawbacks inherent in the residual professional 
model, there is the imperative that African social work finds a way from the 
slavish replication of inherited forms. Therefore, to radicalise roles for practice 
is to evole a new, more dynamic paradigm. 
Doing so begins with a reconsideration of the profession's mandate. To 
radicalise roles is to prescribe behaviours that directly address the conditions 
of Africa, not those pervading elsewhere. And this intent should be embodied 
in the conceptualisation of social work's mandate. That is, given the 
underdevelopment alluded to, the profession should declare that it exists to 
champion the welfare of the majority of the people and to exercise those 
functions that their empowerment and the development of their societies 
require. It is to actively repudiate as its primary domain of operation the 
dysfunctioning elements of Africa's populations. Its mandate should dictate a
/ 0 Maxine A nkrak 
future and change orientation, rather than one that constrains it to 
maintaining systems. Such a mandate, in essence, reverses a long-standing 
order of priority in social work functioning — from remedial, preventive, and 
developmental functions to development, prevention and remedy as proposed 
by the United Nations Conference of Ministers in 1968 (UN 68). Establishing 
clearly what it is that the profession exists to do or be would make choosing 
alternative, viable models less problematic. 
The political implications of changing mandates and/or strategies from the 
residual model are, I have argued elsewhere, Ankrah 1984, issues that social 
workers have chosen to ignore. They have taken refuge in the assumption that 
change to more appropriate practice could best be achieved by working 
through the departments in which they are employed. Those conditions under 
which change is likely to occur, if at all, are indicated below. In essense, it 
requires radicalising roles at levels of both practice and leadership. 
The modernisation approach: a failed attempt 
To identify the flaws in contemporary social work in Africa and the Third 
World is to imply a dissatisfaction with the status quo. Some western writers 
have examined the potential of social science theories to rsolve the dilema 
posed by ineffective social tools in the light of the Third World's enormous 
problems. Midgley (1984), for example, analyses the major tenents of three 
development paradigms. He questions whether due consideration is given to 
the social welfare implications of these models for developing countries. 
Interest here is only in the modernisation and dependency models he 
discusses. 
The modernisation approach, he shows, takes the view that 
underdevelopment, such as is found in much of Africa, reflects the original 
condition of backwardness of developing nations. This state of affairs is 
marked by the presence of traditional economic and social institutions. 
Consanguine relationships, people predisposed towards apathy, primitive 
modes of production, and unscientific, non-futuristic cultures are prevalent. 
These reinforce each other to keep social systems at low standards of existence. 
Advocates of this position suggest that to foster development, the impediments 
to modernisation must be removed. Progess, which is evolutionary, requires 
the creation of liberal, democratic organisations to replace authorisation, 
oppressive, political systems. It necessitates the diffusion of moden 
technologies and ideas into the developing nations. Change must take place at 
the local level so that conditions foster the mobilisation of capital and other 
resources needed to further development. 
The welfare view of the modernisation paradigm, Midgely concludes, is 
that it comes as a result of economic growth. Consequently, market forces
Radicalising Roles 11 
should be used to meet social needs. The governments should intervene with a 
narrow range of problems, and only then when these cannot be dealt with 
effectively by the private sector4' Midgely notes that this pattern depicts the 
sporadic, piecemeal, pragmatic way welfare was hadled in and since the 
colonial era. An earlier work of mine observed that the privatisation of social 
work and social welfare in Africa, noticeably in arrangements with the 
voluntary agencies, tended to create more problems for development than 
they solve. (Ankrah 1979). Modernisation theory has led to the incremental 
expansion of. the social welfare services in the developing countries, both 
before and after independence. Implicit in the social science writings on the 
subject of creating modern, political, social, and cultural institutions, Midgely 
argues, finally, are policies that advocated, eg, population programmes to 
reduce fertility, community development aimed at changing traditional' 
habits, and the creation of democratic institutions at the local level. (Midgely 
1984). 
Unless the point be obscured, let it be noted here that the underlying 
paradigm of modernisation theory is capitalism. There is no intended 
challenge to that system except to make it work more effectively in line with its 
established tenets. The assumption, then, is that economic and social 
development is an inevitable consequence and will ultimately solve problems 
that concern social policy-makers and implementers. 
Several social work theorists have advocated prescriptions for the Third 
World that put them clearly in the modernisation school. Khinduka (1971) 
urges Third World social workers to adopt a socio-economic model of practice. 
Such a model would transform the profession, moving it from a preoccupation 
with therapeutic needs of the few to champion science and technology, 
advocate land reform, plead the need for institutional change, advance plans 
and proposals designed, in a word, to accelerate socio-economic development. 
Austin (1970) defines social work and social welfare as "specialised areas of 
activity that would contribute directly to total national planning for social and 
economic development.'' 
Andargatchew (1973) analysing trends in social work education from the 
1960's shows that the modernisation perception undergirds thinking in Africa 
as well. This is revealed in what was set out as tasks for the professional: 
The role of the African social worker is to facilitate the 
forward movement arising from social change by 
enabling people to participate fully and effectively in changes 
which otherwise might pass them by. 
Presumably, people would be moving forward from their backwardness as 
underdeveloped people. Since social workers would assist governments to 
enact and implement "progressive" legislation and policies, they would
12 Maxine A nkrah 
therefore need a deep knowledge of the behavioural and social sciences. These 
new assignments, reinforced by a thorough preparation in the social sciences, 
would equip professionals to play substantial roles in processes of 
modernisation. The underlying assumption, inter alia, was that development, 
or progress, would occur and that social work through social welfare and 
community development should play a part. 
Now more than two decades have passed curricula have been revised to 
show a hightened emphasis on the social sciences. They include subjects 
leading towards skills in social policy formulation, planning, administration 
and research, etc and yet social work is still in a search for appropriate 
paradigms and strategies. The prescriptions offered through the 
modernisation approach do not appear to have achieved the desired effect this 
applied social science intended. 
The dependency paradigm 
A number of social scientists have come to quite different conclusions about 
development possibilities in the Third World5' For them the so-called 
'backwardness' of developing countries is not an original state at all. Instead, 
the social and economic problems that plague many of these nations are 
consequences of European imperialism and capitalist penetration. The 
transfer of wealth that began in the fifteenth century led to the 
impoverishment of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Being systematically 
underdeveloped by the flow of resources to metropolitan centres, the Third 
World became incredibly dependent on the industrialised nations - 
economically, socially, politically, and culturally. The development of Africa 
and other regions, those holding the dependency perception maintain, can 
only come about by 'de-linking', or severing, the exploitive links that tie 
nations to the western centres of capitalism. Yet others doubt that 
development is possible at all whilst capitalism is the major economic model of 
the worlds economy. 
The implication for social policies and, inter alia, for social work in the 
Third World is the continued replication of inappropriate western models 
because of dependency, eg on resources, technology, and ideas. 
African social scientists have added a number of insights to the dependency 
debate. Amin, Rodney and Mazrui6' to name but a few, put Africa squarely 
in the camp of the underdeveloped regions. Observing that the continent is 
of the richest in the world, the paradox of the widespread poverty of its people 
is described by Mazrui (1980) as "a situation of anomalous 
underdevelopment". He argues that this condition can be explained 
substantially by the nature of Africa's economic interaction with the western 
world across times.
Radicalising Roles 13 
The implications of the dependency framework for social policy 
formulation, and by inference, for social work practice, have begun to be 
considered. Some writers suggest that many of the Third world's social 
problems can be traced directly to conditions of underdevelopment and 
dependency. Doyal and Penell (1984) link some communicable disease to this, 
while Navarro (1984) attempts to show that the maldistribution of health 
facilities and the brain-drain of medical personnel from the poorer regions can 
be accounted for in the same way. The resource scarcity is explained, states 
Brugess (1984) by the transfer of resources that could sustain a high level of 
provision locally. 
A similar perception, that a direct link exists between a state of dependency 
and the nature of social services, is seen in Nyirenda's (1975) case study of 
social planning in Zambia. He identifies what he calls "foreign recipies" and 
"borrowed tools" to mean the expertise and models from industrialised 
countries that skew social planning and implementation away from the social 
organisation of Zambians. But he does not relate these situations to the 
prevailing political economy. On the other hand, my study of social work in 
Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia (Ankrah, 1984) takes the political economy as 
the starting point. Several facts of practice and education are examined. These 
were expected to differ, given the impact of the capitalist, socialist, and 
humanist ideological contexts of the three countries respectively. The research 
was not designed to prove that underdevelopment and depency lay at the 
bottom of the professional responses reported. Nevertheless, the study did 
confirm the existence of a number of social-political features that argued the 
continuance of forms bedded not as much in backwardness as in dependent 
relationships. Among these features were the persistence of residual patterns 
of practice, a slant in social policies towards the economic-growth model of 
development, and a conservative bias in education. 
The voices urging the Third World to make a break with the historical 
residual model of social work, in summary, have increased in number and 
intensity over the years. If the professionals in this applied field have not 
derived other paradigms or have not acted on their collective, accumulated 
wisdom, it may well reflect a context hardly facilitating change and 
developemnt. Dependency theorists contend just such an effect. Therefore, 
formulating alternatives would seem an even more urgent matter for Africa 
and the Third World than for the industrialised countries where such attention 
is being given currently to this issue.7 
The dimensions of a radicalising approach 
The assumption is being made that a dynamic social work model in Africa can 
be operationalised, despite the limitations of the context. An emerging issue is 
to define the features of a model or models germane to African conditions.
14 Maxine Ankrah 
Clearly, approaches that replace the residial pattern will evolve over time and 
will need to be a result of experimentation as well as experimental discoveries. 
Efficacy wil need to be demonstrated. That is, the model will have to take into 
full consideration Africa's underdevelopment. The proposition profered here 
is therefore tentative. It is intended to provide a framework for thinking, social 
work educators in particular can test these ideas in the design of research 
projects. Fieldwork could prove another valuable tool for explaining ways to 
refine and to implement them. Much will depend, finally, on the degree to 
which educators and administrators of practice reduce the gap that 
characteristically exists between the field and the institutions. It is hoped, 
moreover, that a wider range of disciplines, including the sociologists and 
anthropologists, are drawn into the search for a new social work paradigm for 
Africa. Five dimensions can be identified which should interact mutally to 
inform radicalised roles. It is to a discussion of these dimensions that attention 
is now turned. 
A macrodetermination dimension 
In the first place, practice must be perceived as macrodeterministic. The UN 
Conference of Ministers of Social Welfare 1968, in calling for a move from a 
remedial to a developmental stance, recognised that the socio-economic 
problems and needs of the Third World were of the scale that only 
correspondingly broad approaches would suffice. The dimension requires that 
social work be responsive to the totality of conditions and circumstances 
touching the lives of the masses. 
The injunction that social work became macro-deterministic does not imply 
a mechanical determinism. Instead, it is to argue for greater flexibility. The 
determining, dictating factor would be the needs of Africa's masses. With a 
perspective to serve the majority, social work's choice of problems with which 
to deal, and the needs to which to respond, as well as the methods of approach, 
could then conform to Africa's culture as well as to its environment. For both 
of these giye clues as to how to proceed. Both point strongly towards actions 
determined by a concern for large scale. 
Note could be taken in pursuit of radicalised social work roles, therefore, of 
the continued impact of the extended family, of still adhered to clan 
obligations, of the prevalence of mutual aid societies and the persistence of 
traditional patterns in agricultural production units in some African countries. 
With regard to the latter of these four forms, a base for modifying practice 
with groups can be found, for example, though the study of traditional work 
units such as the Wang Ties of Uganda (Mamdani, 1984). 
Both intrinsically as well as extrinsically, then, an holistic model would 
inform all of the activities, programmes and services of social work. For
Radicalising Roles 15 
example, the macro-determinist conceptualisation should guide strategies so 
that, for example needs of the extended family are fitted into village 
development programmes. The needs of the handicapped are provided for by 
productivity schemes. The women's groups are integrated into the 
cooperative movement. The profession therefore selects that knowledge and 
those skills that would equip it with the capacity to intervene in those areas of 
broad-based development such as health, housing, and production. It would 
play a role in efforts at social integration through mobilisation of people and 
resources. Direct services, intended to help marginal groups at micro-levels of 
implementation, would be developed within this larger framework. 
Development strategies of African governments, despite the pressures of 
western capitalist powers to reprivitise the socio-economic systems, still aim to 
raise living standards of the majority of their populations. Yet to date, this 
holistic conceptualisation for the whole practice has not evolved significant 
empirical forms to match the expectations of governments?-Social investment 
programmes such as education, nutrition, and cooperatives must claim the 
attention of social workers in Africa, or the profession will lack any credibility 
or sanction to be more self-actualising. This writer takes exception, therefore 
to Hardiman and Midgely and other western thinkers who would confine 
social work for the Third World mostly to the disadvantaged. They argue that 
there are other profesions which can exercise macro-functions better. It is such 
perceptions as these through the 'expertise' imported into Africa that accounts 
for social work's present lack of strategies and roles beyond the micro-level. 
Social design dimension 
Secondly, radicalising roles for development requires that social work be 
perceived as having what can be termed a 'social design' dimension. 
Imbrongo (1985), defined it as "a process of design in which emerging human 
and social needs are anticipated and the means necessary to their realisation 
are prescribed, 9A social system design, according to him, is ' 'the arrangement 
of, and processes of arranging and re-arranging the human, social and 
technical resources to accomplish community objectives". Implicit in his 
definitions is the possibility of creative thought and action to be applied to 
development problems. The profession would respond practically to propose 
those alternatives that ensure that social development goals are met. This is in 
contrast to a proclivity to react in social work. A concern with designing 
desired conditions moves the profession to invent, to innovate, to experiment 
with new programme ideas, to combine old traditional African forms of 
provisions and problem-solving with new approaches. 
Concern for child welfare, for example, could be, expressed in terms of 
family development whereby children's rights and their participation in 
decision-making would be encouraged. Much of Africa's poverty can be
16 Maxim A nkrak 
accounted for by rural household underdevelopment. That is, with men away 
in pursuit of jobs and insufficient funds to support two households, it is quite 
frequently the rural household that suffers. Designing roles for broad social 
development could mean focusing first on the development of the rural family. 
This could mean educating the woman left in the rural areas, helping her to 
gain competence in management of her funds and selling crops. She could be 
helped to deal with her problems of loneliness, or of rearing children with little 
input from the husband. The novelty of traditional self-help and community 
development methods seems to have worn off, yet the need for mobilisation of 
the rural population is still acute. The move from residual to radical social 
work implies that the profession can command those skills that convey to 
governments, policy designers and other disciplines efficacy at societal levels. 
Designing mobilisation strategies, for example through village councils or 
women's groups, that take into account changes in the political and economic 
spheres and the need of the masses for new perceptions of reality would 
concomitantly change the image and nature of social work. 
Social work then, in accepting a social design conceptualisation of social 
development, would have greatly added manoeuverability, as the foregoing 
possibilities indicate. 
Social designing, in summary, undergirded by a macro-deterministic 
perception, permits social work to incorporate whole social systems in the 
determination of developmental goals and the means to attain them. It would 
require that social work serves coordination functions. The profession would 
be engaged in the creation of those organisations and institutions needed, but 
now lacking, on the African scene. 
Moreover, the profession could more readily discover and promote 
appropriate roles. For its end would not be to 'facilitate' what is, but to 
'create' what needs to be. It could even redesign itself. 
The change dimension 
Radicalisation for roles in development means purposely engineering change. 
Change is perceived by the model discussed here as a growth-producing 
process. Yet, social work can point to little evidence that the systems helped, 
eg, juvenile delinguents, orphans, the mentally ill, etc, have sustained growth 
over time. It is possible that since a conceptualisation of practice has not 
emphasised this dimension, the profession knows little about how to 
operationalise it; that is, how to plan, initiate, implement and to sustain 
change (1982). It would appear experientially that the lack is as apparent at 
micro as at macro levels of implementation. 
The problems to operationalising growth are several. There is need for 
some measure of consensus within the profession as to the structural and
Radicalising Roles 17 
institutional social changes it will commit its efforts to in a given African 
context. Is it for participatory democracy, expanded social services, social 
justices and human rights? The means to galvanise professionals so as to 
arrive at a consensus and to act in concert is itself problematic. This is due to 
the dearth of associations and the fragmentation within social work in Africa. 
There is, too, a need to understand the obstacles to change as well as factors in 
the change process. Much of the knowledge required here must be derived 
from the sociologists and anthropologists. Both can inform practice as to how 
to produce growth at macro-levels. Other disciplines, such as psychology, can 
assist with insights on dealing with change and resistance at the individual and 
group levels within society. 
Change as a growth producing process suggests a model of practice that: 
discovers procedures for helping people and communities to be more changeconscious 
and more change-competent. In expectations, for example, that 
rural people are slow to act on the changes recommended, social work would 
experiment with methods of reaching out to stimulate people to change. 
Having done so — and this is the area of greatest weakness — radicalised 
change-oriented practice would be designed to help social systems to acquire 
the skills needed to go beyond the minimum first steps. This would enable 
them to act positively in future situations requiring change. As social work 
serves to stimulate self-actualisation at the individual or family levels, for 
example, human systems become accumulatively more flexible, spontaneous, 
expectant, and willing to try other changes..Social work in Africa can draw on 
viable networks of relationships, extended families, clans, village groupings, 
etc, to create and to promote the cooperative atmosphere that enables other 
more positive steps towards change to be taken. 
Lack of professional motivation to change may, in fact, lie at the heart of 
social work's fixation at the residual stage of development! As part of Africa's 
educate elite, social workers can be counted among those who rule. Change 
involves risk at the personnel level, no matter what Africa's conditions cry out 
for it. Implementation of this dimension within an African derived paradigm 
would be a function of change oriented education and a radicalised 
professional leadership, this latter is the concern of the last section of this 
paper. 
The futuristic dimension 
Social work that will empower people to change will need to effect a fourth 
dimension. It will need to instill a futuristic outlook among its members. To 
be future-orientated is, as suggested above, to anticipate what human needs 
will be and what conditions will ensure that these are met. This necessitates 
interest beyond the moment, beyond the 'new' reality. There must be a 
capacity to project thinking into the unknown. (This is, of course, greatly
18 Maxine A nkrak 
aided by the use of computers, a distant possibility in social work 
organisations in most of Africa). Futuristic thinking provides the needed 
latitude to consider the most applicable methodology. Therefore, the 
'borrowed' residual methods, eg, casework, can be exchanged for indigenous 
forms because those which will work efficaciously can be forecast. 
The profession, no less than politicians and populations in general, may 
have little consciousness of being in control of those resources essential to 
realistic goal-setting necessary to chart future courses for social systems. Social 
work professionals may have succumbed to the fatalism than is inevitable if a 
dependency perception is to be accepted unequivocably. However, some basic 
questions can be asked: Should there be first material resources, or the ideas, 
plans and the concrete strategies tht match a vision of a better future? The new 
paradigm, then, must encourage planning and goal-setting for the future that 
is desired. 
A broad-based education introduced in the 1960's has resulted in the 
inclusion in social work education, especially at the graduate levels, of 
knowledge and skills for planning, policy development, and evaluation. 
Failure to fully integrate those into thinking and implementation of practice 
may be traced to the insufficient support given by the educational institutions 
to funding fieldwork (Ankrah, 1984). 
To be disinclined toward looking ahead may also be accounted for by the 
realisation that, for the vast majority of Africans, life, or survival, is very 
precarious in terms of securing such basic human needs as food, housing, and 
health. Therefore, the element of hope is conceived here as integral to 
futuristic thinking. Professional social workers must be able to convey to 
interdisciplinary colleagues, to leaders, and to the people that the future 
belongs to those who seize it. Against every odd, positive changes can come 
where there is a fundamental belief that there is a future to work toward. 
Otherwise, there can be no pulling together of the people with the profession 
to work for their own betterment. Such is the essence of development. In the 
end, perhaps the most important question social work can ask itself is this: Is 
its vision for the African peoples satisfied by the status quo? 
The political will dimension 
Undergirding the four dimensions above is that of the political will. This 
writer takes the view that fundamental to a restructuring of social work is the 
need for professionals to come to terms with the political systems existing in 
their respective countries. While Andargatchew (1973) urges awareness in 
order to time practice interventions, from the silence of the literature in the 
region it is clear that there is an avoidance of politicians.I0And this functions to 
prevent the development of viable political strategies.
Radicalising Roles 19 
Several reasons are given for this behaviour. Politicians are perceived to be 
unrealiable accomplices who work not for the masses, but for their own ends. 
They tend to use professionals. They are not impartial; they actively and 
subjectively seek narrow, personal goals. Others are believed to be bought by 
the external capitalist interests. The problem may not relate totally to the flaws 
of the politicians, however. Khinduka (1971) has noted that the social work 
profession has tended to select the 'soft options' of consensus rather than 
confrontation. The issue then, is not that professionals should 'rub shoulders' 
with politicians. They are not being told to keep in step with every new regime 
that gains power. Rather, recognition needs to be given to this fact: at the base 
of all other power that thwarts or is at the disposal of the profession for change 
is political power, both foreign and local. As is the case in much of Africa, it is 
paradoxical that in avoiding active engagement with the political arena, social 
work professionals become as powerless as those 'victims' whose cause 
residual social work exists to champion. 
To radicalise roles, therefore, is to go beyond indifference and the fear of 
what 'basically' could appear to those not involved with the system as raw, 
untamed power. It requires the conscious forging of political linkage. These 
links must be sought out, cultivated and directed toward the profession's goals 
and vision. Politicians, for example, may be little concerned with the 'widows 
and the orphans'. But they could be pursuaded to take note of, for example, 
the 90 per cent of other women who can be mobilised through income 
generating groups. Thus at issue is what it is that the professionals want when 
they seek to engage the political systems. Ultimately, it is the political will of 
both politicians and informed professionals that is needed to effect positive 
social change and development. Hearn's (1982) view that radical social work 
entails a political strategy is to a large extent, therefore, equally applicable to 
Africa. 
Radicalising the leadership 
As with political linkages, writers in Africa have, curiously, focused very little 
attention on the issue of the professional leadership of social work. In .this 
paper the thesis is advanced that the pivotal position effecting changes to a 
more relevant professional stance is that of the top administrators of practice. 
Only a cursory examination of that viewpoint is necessary to this work. 
All human groupings establish authority systems which designate those who 
lead. These become the wielders of power, who represent specific interests - be 
these political, economic, or professional interests. They are the critical 
decision-makers who determine the operationalisation of models. The 
dependency school of thought suggests that those who decide, ie the ruling 
elite, on the nature and and quality of development will be in conflict with 
those who advance arguments favouring the majority11. Promoting a
20 Maxine A nkrah 
radicalised practice, no less than effecting social development itself, implicitly 
evokes a turbulent situation in which diametrically opposing ideologies, goals, 
and strategies contend for pre-eminence. The larger systems, in particular, 
the global economic order that conditions Africa's underdevelopment, resist 
change, thus limiting organisational and professional modifications. 
Because of demands for effectiveness and efficiency 
in use of funds, in order to survive, agencies have a 
built-in bias to continue with their current programmes, 
which creates an inhospitable atmosphere for any significant 
change (Weiss, 1982:611) 
It is these forces, apparent in the western world as well, that restrain change to 
a more developmental model as recommended by the 1968 UN Conference of 
Ministers of Social Welfare, rather than its appropriateness and 
inapplicability as Midgely (1982:254) has claimed. Developmental roles have 
not been permitted. But neither have those forces restricting practice to the 
residual model been acknowledged. Until the sum of obstructing factors, those 
described essentially by the dependency rather than the modernisation 
paradigm, are critically addressed in the approaches of practice, little headway 
will be made towards implementing roles pertinent to Africa's progress. 
Given the marginality of social work and social welfare concerns to planners 
of development, finding a way out of the impasse of having a will but no way 
to more significant involvement poses a real dilemma. For African countries 
facing comparable hindrances due to conditions of dependency. Seers 
(1983:144) contends that political leadership is the determining factor. Such 
leadership can establish, eg through education policies, those conditions where 
there will be more room to manoeuvre in future. 
Essentially the same conclusion is taken in the research already mentioned 
in this paper. With respect to producing a practice that meets Africa's 
requirements, the professional leadership, in most instances the administrator 
position, is the locus of greatest import. More radicalised roles cannot emerge 
unless sanctioned fully by that leadership. However, organisational patterns 
persist which show a monopoly of power concentrated in positions at the top. 
This tends to dwarf thinking by profesionals. It reinforces the dilemma 
identified by Barkun earlier: the very minds needed to creatively deal with 
development problems are brought under leadership systems that can reduce 
their contributions to routine matters. While the leadership has considerable 
control over important facets of practice such as planning, administration, and 
financial control in the three countries studied (Ankrah, 1984; Thompson, 
1961; Blan & Scott, 1962), it is perceived, nevertheless, as sharing little power 
with professionals to direct or to change the modus operandi. 
And this is as it should be: for this inherited, rigid, Weberian organisational 
model is needed to entrench residual social work. The restraint is materialised
Radicalising Rolls 21 
in the functions of the leadership of practice. If those guiding social work 
accept the implicit authority resting in the expert knowledge and skills that 
professionals bring to bear on the problems of development, then, professional 
leadership must itself be radicalised. 
There must be administrative sharing of power. The writer here refers to 
the legitimation by the top position of actions of professionals as an inherent 
component of leadership and basic to the attainment of goals. It implies 
structural arrangements by which positional authority, legitimised power, is 
divested from the administrative position to the professionals in forms that in 
effect increase their power within the organisation. Power, the ability to cause 
the desired behaviours, is here a concern with the way professional leadership 
uses its mechanisms of control. That such legitimation has hardly been 
realised in social work in Africa is illustrated by lack of a recognition of the 
social worker on par with other professionals such as agriculturalists, 
economists and sociologists. It is also indicated by the low levels of pay, despite 
the fact that social workers are equally qualified educationally. 
The professional leadership holding positional power shares power when it 
consciously uses structural supervisory mechanism of communication, 
decision-making and the allocation of resources to enhance the authority of the 
professional to operationalise the social work mandate. In all three respects, 
the leadership studied in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia were seen hardly to 
legitimate the professional role. The administrators, as perceived by 
professionals, communicated in a manner that hampered feedback from it. 
Participation in decision-making was circumscribed except where the person 
at the top was away at headquarters - away from the field of action. And 
practice was impoverished of resources. Where the leadership aims to enhance 
the contributions of the professionals of practice it can give them more power - 
a power manifested in terms of the removal of obstacles to their actualising 
new roles. There will be reinforcement of trends that legitimate professional 
goals. This would be seen where the leadership uses its power to manipulate 
the larger environmental systems towards support for developmental roles for 
social work. 
It is clear that a radicalised professional leadership as outlined would 
represent a dramatic departure from the status quo - especially so, since most 
social work is practised in the bureaucracy of the civil service. Thus, change of 
professional leaders may prove the more change difficult to effect. Yet 
designing and redesigning practice under Africa's conditions, requires the 
maximum of creativity and skill. Obstructing any segment of the profession is 
therefore untenable. 
Needed: a social science response 
The social behavioural sciences made major contributions in using their
22 Maxine Ankrah 
disciplines in the western nations. This was seen in their efforts to reshape 
organisational and managerial behaviour, for example, through analyses that 
demonstrated the constraints imposed by bureaucratic structures and the 
advantages of more democratic leadership styles. The task for the sociologists 
and anthropologists in the region is to engage the leadership and professionals 
in dialogue around the issues of models and roles pertinent to Africa's 
development needs and problems. As many social science graduates soon 
became managers, and in light of the stringent criticism from western, neorecolonisers 
about African's mis-management, the dialogue about practice 
issues could well be intra-disciplinary to continue to provide the analytical 
tools that would move professional leadership in those directions that theories 
indicate would most likely arrest Africa's downward trend. 
Practically, there is a imperative that the sociologists and anthropologists 
assist by closing the gap between their disciplines and the practice field. This 
calls for greater interdisciplinary cooperation in areas of research and in the 
formulation of theories derived from Africa's experiences. (The implication 
for educators is treated by others). Beyond the classroom, this necessitates 
coalition between the applied and non-applied disciplines to discover and to 
use all available leverage to get structural, systematic changes within and 
sanctioned by the political systems. This would recognise that 
underdevelopment and dependency are imbedded in structures and 
institutions of practice and education. In summary, what is needed is a 
departure from ad hoc arrangements to sustained attention to practice by all - 
the sociologists and anthropologists no less than the social worker. 
Summary and conclusion 
The residual model of social work has been examined and criticised as being 
inappropriate for Africa. A need to break away from this model towards a 
development model was preferred, implying a radicalisation of social work 
roles. The alternative approaches growing out of theories of modernisation 
and dependency have failed to provide suitable presciptions. Failure to find a 
way to move away from residual practice is explained by credence given the 
assumptions that do not take the context of underdevelopment into full 
consideration. 
A paradigm was suggested as a tentative start toward radicalisation of roles 
which would reflect five dimensions. It would be macrodeterministic, 
emphasise social designs, have a social change orientation, be futuristic in 
outlook, and show political will. The paper concludes that the way to 
fundamental development practice lies with the professional leadership. It can 
prepare for the future desired, in spite of constraints to change in the 
contemporary context. To maximise impact, that leadership must be
Radicalising Roles 23 
radicalised. It will need to share the power of the administrative position with 
professionals whose expertise in current organisational contexts is little 
legitimated. 
The discovery of an appropriate alternative model for development practice 
ultimately is of impact beyond one applied discipline. It touches all of the 
social sciences concerned with the doing of their theories. Therefore, progress 
and success in the search will depend, finally, on carefully conceived and 
sustained cooperation between the sociologists and anthropologists and 
applied practice fields such as social work. 
Footnotes 
1. Margaret Hardiman and James Midgely, The Social Dimensions of Development: Social 
Policy and Planning in the Third World, Chichester, John Wiley and Sons, 1982, pp 
254-257. See also E. Maxine Ankrah, "Constraints to social work practice in East Africa 
with special reference to voluntary agencies" in E P Kibuka ed, Planning for Services in 
East Africa, Kampala, Makerere University, 1979. 
2. Hardiman and Midgely's view that such concerns should be left to other than welfare 
ministries, and by implication social workers, is not shared by this writer. Unless the 
profession grapples with these problems and issues it lacks credibility in the region. See 
Hardiman and Midgely, op cit, pp 254-257. 
3. Martin Rein, "Social work in search of a radical profession", in Neil Gilbert and Harry 
Specht, eds, The Emergence of Social Welfare and Social Work, Itasea, Illinois, F R 
Peacock, 1976; Jerry H Galper, The Politics of Social Services, Englewood Cliffs, 
Prentice-Hall, 1975; S Macpherso'n, Social Policy in the Third World: The Social 
Dilemmas of Underdevelopment, London, Wheatsheaf Books, 1982; Hardiman and 
Midgely, op cit; Jeff Hearn, "Radical Social Work - contradictions, limitations and 
political possibilities," in Critical Social Policy, vol 2 No 1, Summer 1982. 
4. James Midgely, "Social welfare implications of development paradigms", in Social 
Service Review, Vol 58, No 2 June 1984, pp 181-198. See also Harold Wilensky and 
Charles N. Lebeaux, Industrial Society and Social Welfare, New York, the Free Press, 
1965. 
5. James Midgely, "Social Welfare implication of development paradigms", op cit. See also 
Gabriel Palma, "Dependency and development: a critical overview", in Dudley Seers, ed, 
Dependency Theory: A Critical Ressessmcnt, London, Frances Pinter, 1983, pp 20-78. 
6. S Amin, "Underdevelopment and dependency in Black Africa: origins and contemporary 
forms", in Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol 10, No 4, pp 503-525; T dos Santos, 
"The structure of dependence", in American Economic Review, Vol 60 No 2 pp 231-261; 
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 
Publishing House, 1972; AH A Maruzi, The Reith Lectures, London, Heinmann, 1980 pp 
70-90. 
7. A search for a relevant model began in Africa in the early 1960s. Increased consideration of 
this issue is reflected in the works of, eg Glenn O Haworth, ' 'Social work research, practice 
and paradigms" in Social Service Review, Vol 58 No 3, September 1984, pp 343-371; and 
see Salvatore Imbrogno, "An emerging inquiry: social design in social development", in 
International Social Work, Vol 28, No 2 1985, pp 35-43. 
8. This is not to imply that no social workers practice at national levels. Rather, when they do, 
it is frequently outside the framework of the profession. See Hearn, op cit, community
2i Maxim Ankrah 
development activity is small scale and cannot usually be integrated with national 
development. 
9. Imbrogno, op cit, p 35. His theory is for social development but has relevance for a social 
work model as I have tried to show. 
10. Ankrah Maxine, op cit, pp 299-303, practitioners of the three countries studied chase 
politicians last when forming coalitions to influence change in policies or programmes. 
11. Ankrah Maxine, op cit, pp 63-93; se also Dudley Seers, "Development options: The 
strengths and weaknesses of dependency heoreties in explaining a government's room to 
manoeuvre", in Seers, Dependency Theory: A Critical Assessment, op cit, pp 133-149; 
Imbrogno, op cit. 
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Radicalising Roles 25