Abstract:
On 25 September 2015 a high–level forum of the United Nations met in New York to
adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which provided a framework
for member states to fulfil the goals set out. The agenda contained an action plan for
people, planet, and prosperity with seventeen (17) Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. All countries and stakeholders, acting in collaborative
partnerships, would implement this plan, to which the delegates declared and
committed themselves. The plan concurred with the African Union Commission’s
Agenda 2063 – “Africa that we want”. Sequential to these developments, some religious
organisations joined the discourse and advocated for the place of religion in sustainable
development. This article employs deconstruction qualitative research methodology
to explore the religious pathways in the SDGs as determined by historical colonial
choices in Sub–Saharan Africa. The modern discourse of religion and sustainable
development cannot be assumed to be value free. The Jewish proverb that “new wine is
not poured into an old wineskin” is used as a historical lens to debunk the underlying
legacy of colonialism that continues to hide the coloniality epistemic of dominance
and power underlying the language of sustainable development that tends to endorse
universality and ignore historical praxis of colonialism.
