It is important to note that none of the committee members except Fr. Nare are themselves experts who have researched proverbs extensively, though Prof. Mbiti has built a private collection of 1500 Akamba proverbs over some decades. The members were chosen not because of a deep specialist interest in proverbs but because they all see the significance of proverbs in their broader fields and they all have a broad range of contacts through different networks. The role of the committee was to find and encourage the proverb experts, not duplicate or compete with their work. The other is Global Mapping International, an independent evangelical mission agency with a staff of ten persons who raise their own salary support from a broad spectrum of churches and individuals.
Proverbs are the distilled genius of oral cultures, perhaps even an encapsulation of the whole.
They identify and dignify a culture, bringing life into wisdom and wisdom into life. Unfortunately their potential value for modern thought and life is little recognized. Even in Africa itself, proverbs are a vanishing heritage associated mostly with the barefoot, rural world. They seem never to have found a home in the modern world, especially in the imported system of education. The central intellectual problem of Africa today is how to integrate those two worlds rather than leave the next generation spread-eagled between them.