Abstract
This paper highlighted the potentials of indigenous knowledge in advancing innovation and development in rural communities in Africa. It further made a critical excursion into the different types of indigenous knowledge existing in African rural communities, which could serve as an innovative system and a source for rural community development in Africa. The paper also presented both the reasons and limitations why rural communities in Africa are not developing as a consequence of ignoring their indigenous knowledge and subscribed to the western model of innovation and development. The paper also proposed a conceptual model through which rural communities can rethink and revisit the potentials of indigenous knowledge for their development rather than relying on the western innovation and development.