Aligning with ACL 2022 special Theme on "Language Diversity: from Low\nResource to Endangered Languages", we discuss the major linguistic and\nsociopolitical challenges facing development of NLP technologies for African\nlanguages. Situating African languages in a typological framework, we discuss\nhow the particulars of these languages can be harnessed. To facilitate future\nresearch, we also highlight current efforts, communities, venues, datasets, and\ntools. Our main objective is to motivate and advocate for an Afrocentric\napproach to technology development. With this in mind, we recommend\n\\textit{what} technologies to build and \\textit{how} to build, evaluate, and\ndeploy them based on the needs of local African communities.\n