Currently, occupational and organizational psychology is not widely included in psychology programmes in French-speaking African countries and research in the field is not firmly rooted in local contexts. Most studies do not address the specific demands and issues encountered in relation to work in the local populations. Very often, research is based on formal work analysis models developed in Europe and North America, even though in francophone African countries economies are largely based on informal work. These models struggle to decipher informal work and related behaviours as they cannot account for contextual variables and their associated logic and beliefs. A psychology of work that takes these variables into account would align with current efforts towards the decolonization of psychology. It requires training, practices and research in psychology that explore ways of thinking, beliefs and rationales rooted in local contexts, which could enrich the current dominant models to better understand behaviours in context. Knowledge of these ways of thinking, logics and beliefs could lead to a better understanding of economic, organizational and social behaviours, which, when taken into account, can be a vector for sustainable development.