For Africa, the use of language in social research and policy must consider the mobilization of human resources for development. No meaningful change can occur without the full participation of the masses. The importance of speaking to people in their own languages cannot be over-stressed. The major purpose of development research is to provide fundamental and long-term solutions to social problems. Social science research should ideally aim at discovering and understanding such problems.
Social development remains a complex phenomenon that brings into play a multiplicity of factors.
These variables are often quite fluid in nature. However, research becomes a complete waste of resources if the findings do not reflect the true feelings of the target population. Unless that happens, results and recommendations contribute little to a collective understanding of the problems or the policies envisaged. The nature and level of the discourse involved is frequently cast in complex, exclusive jargon understood only by a tiny minority of technical and academic elites. As a result, social research over the years has become an essentially academic exercise.