33419 Indigenous Knowledge - Cross - Regional Distance Learning Course (India, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Tanzania) I ntroduction The World Bank's Indigenous Knowl- Notes by the GDLN centers. The training edge (IK) Program (Africa Knowledge course was delivered through a series and Learning unit) organized a pilot cross of presentations of IK case studies regional distance learning course and subjects related to IK develop- (March/April 2005) on Using Indig- ment and application, by selected enous Knowledge for the Millennium resource persons with IK knowledge Development Goals in collaboration and experience from different coun- KI with the Global Development Learning tries. The lectures were delivered by Network (GDLN). . Over 100 partici- (i) IK experts and practitioners who pants attended the course through local shared their lessons of experience; GDLN centers in Uganda, Tanzania, Sri and (ii) experts from the scientific Lanka and India. These included policy­ community (US-NIH) and UN makers from health, agriculture and agencies (WIPO) who addressed environment ministries, researchers and critical challenges related to the http://www.worldbank.org/afr/ik/default.htm academia, engineers, NGOs, civil society efficacy, validation, protection, and IK practitioners including farmers documentation and conservation and healers. The primary objective of the aspects of IK. Each center had a multi-media course was to demonstrate local facilitator who was an IK expert to participants how to development that served as a resource person to challenges can better be addressed guide the participants through the through the appropriate use of Indig- course, address their concerns, and enous Knowledge. Specifically, the help them develop individual action exchange demonstrated the role of IK in plans during offline sessions. The helping achieve the Millennium Develop- No. 84 ment Goals (MDGs). The focus was on September 2005 success stories in using IK to help increase food security and agricultural IK Notes reports periodically on Indigenous Knowledge (IK) initiatives productivity, reduce maternal mortality, in Sub-Saharan Africa and treat the opportunistic diseases associ- occassionally on such initiatives ated with HIV/AIDS and help conserve outside the region. It is published by biodiversity. The course facilitated clients the Africa region's Knowledge and Learning Center as part of an in incorporating IK into their programs/ evolving K partnership between the policies and promoting South-South World Bank, communities, NGOs, dialogue/cooperation among IK practitio- development institutions, and ners. multilateral organizations. The views The course comprised of a combina- expressed in this article are those of World Bank the authors and should not be tion of presentations by experts, case attributed to the World Bank Group or studies, interactive group and cross its partners in this initiative. A regional discussions. These were facili- webpage on IK is available at tated through video-conference sessions //www.worldbank.org/afr/ik 2 outputs from the course have been integrated into a DVD eration. The most notable achievements to date include the which serves as a stand-alone IK Toolkit1. following actions that have been planned or are under implementation in the four countries: Outcomes 1.Ten National Agricultural Research and Training Institu- tions have begun to work with local farmers to document Facilitators' reports and incorporate local farming practices into their pro- The facilitators' reports identified the expectations of the grams. These include post-harvesting techniques, food participants and assessed the extent to which these were processing and local crop varieties that are drought/flood met through the course. According to the reports, the resistant. Agricultural Ministries plan to incorporate IK cross-regional exchanges and lectures enabled the partici- into national food security and livestock policies. pants to: 2.Seven universities have begun to incorporate IK into · Understand the concept of IK and its practical applica- their curriculums, including geography, botany, medicine, tion to development and specific MDGs. science and technology faculties. Some plan to develop · Gain more knowledge on how to work with IK bearers in specific degree courses devoted to IK. development as well as to help people with HIV/AIDS, 3.Four Ministries of Health have begun to mainstream IK through exchanging knowledge on different IK therapies into national development projects and policies. Efforts used for AIDS. are underway to help document and validate the work of · Gather knowledge and experience on IK relevant to traditional healers to test the safety and efficacy of agriculture and food security from other countries. traditional medicine. · Learn about specific IK practices, such as the use of 4.Five World Bank projects have begun to integrate IK Neem that could be adapted to solve local development into health, agriculture and rural development projects, challenges. after attending the course. Some have begun to engage · Gain knowledge on how information technology can be local IK experts to help design specific IK components integrated with IK for socio-economic development and into projects. Others have allocated project fund re- provide a cost effective way of disseminating local sources to finance IK-based activities. knowledge across regions 5.Sixty-five participants have begun to incorporate the · Learn from international and national efforts to address lessons learnt from the cross-regional exchanges into the dual challenges of IK validation and protection from their core activities, such as the use of traditional medi- cross-regional experiences and institutional arrange- cine to treat the opportunistic infections related to HIV/ ments. AIDS, promotion of local food varieties, cultivation of · Learn from various approaches towards mainstreaming medicinal plants, institutionalization of farmers' field IK at the policy, project and community levels and build schools and the integration of IK into national IPR on these to integrate IK into respective work programs. policies. · Appreciate the value of community-to-community 6.The course also attracted a number of IK skeptics such exchanges as a tool to promote the widespread exchange as public engineers, who, however, realized the potential of IK practices among local communities and develop- for IK in development. For example, the Colombo ment partners. Municipal Council now plans to use indigenous technical knowledge to improve the effectiveness of its core Action plans activities. At the end of the course, the participants developed an action plan outlining how they intended to incorporate IK and the relevant course materials (i) into their own work Key issues raised by participants programs; (ii) at the project level; (iii) at the policy level, (iv) through cross-regional exchanges and dialogue, and (v) through specific activities to promote South-South Coop- Sri Lanka ·The course highlighted the usefulness of having a systems approach versus a segmented approach which makes it easier for validation of IK. 1Each DVD contains the course description, agenda, course ·There is a need for more active participation from the materials, video conference sessions, participant action plans, facilitators' reports, course evaluations, local media coverage and government to promote the use of IK. Also needed is participant contact details. stronger advocacy from stakeholders to their particular 3 constituencies. funds to help scale up their best practices. The Tanzania ·The presentations by WIPO helped to compare our NationalAIDS Commission has provided TAWG with situation with that of the international scene. The partici- small grants to train other communities across the pants were able to clear doubts with regard to IPR and country in their holistic approaches to prevention, care also think of ways and means to close the existing and treatment. loopholes in the present legislation. ·TAWG also presents a good model for developing a multi- ·There is a need to design a new approach for Traditional sectoral approach towards mainstreaming IK. It first Medicine clinical trials which test the holistic Traditional partnered with doctors and nurses in the regional hospital Knowledge management interventions, consisting of to integrate traditional medicine into allopathic treatment drugs, diet and mental health inputs in place of the regimes prescribed for HIV/AIDS. TAWG is now conventional drug trials. collaborating with the Forestry Department to address the challenges related to the protection and conservation India of medicinal plants. ·Knowledge interventions in HIV-AIDS are `outstanding' ·The course helped address the challenges related to the and appear extremely important for management of HIV. documentation of IK practices that tend to be rooted in The low, almost negligible investment in Indigenous oral traditions. Tanzania needs to learn from other Knowledge and HIV need to be urgently stepped up, countries such as India and Sri Lanka how to systemati- given the significant outcomes of its intervention. cally identify and document local IK practices and help ·A new scientific hypothesis has emerged from Indigenous institutionalize them into national development policies Knowledge use, which shows that improved immunity and projects. India's Traditional Knowledge Digital and functional health of patients is possible despite the Library provides a way forward for Tanzania. viral load. The question that arises is whether the debili- tating effect of the virus can be reduced in an altered Uganda immune environment created by Indigenous knowledge ·The presentation on the Iganga TBA in reduction of based therapies. maternal mortality sparked off a heated debate. Partici- ·There is scope for South-South Cooperation between pants observed that the Iganga case should have ad- Africa and Asia in medicinal plant conservation and dressed the whole range of the reproductive system sustainable use based on the recent experiences in Sri (anti-natal, child delivery, post-natal and child health care) Lanka and India. to explore the intervention of IK. It appeared that the ·Participants were enthused to hear from the WIPO that project had been designed to test the contribution of the Intellectual Property Rights regime is undergoing information and communication technologies (ICTs) in rapid changes and today innovations articulated in the improving the work of traditional birth attendants theoretical framework of IK are also being recognized, (TBAs). as patent-worthy. ·The TAWG experience was very relevant to the Ugandan ·WIPO should set up "expert inter-cultural panels" to situation. Information on herbs with nutritional value and resolve disputes related to the `non-obviousness' of an the process of gender mainstreaming in operations was innovation based on IK. This is because what may be desirable. However, more information would be needed. novel in one cultural knowledge system may be obvious, Networking to promote South-South cooperation on IK in the other, although their expressions and categories could address this need. may be culturally different. ·The Kani Tribe Benefit Sharing Model ( Kerala, India ) ·The Indian Plant Breeders Rights initiative is an innova- was very relevant to Uganda in view of the high tive grassroots, initiative for the revitalization of Indig- bioprospecting activities in the country by people from enous Knowledge. It needs to be managed in a creative outside the country. way with full participation of and control by local com- ·The development of the IPR regime to address issues of munities. property rights as they relate to IK was an urgent matter. While WIPO's initiatives in this regard were recognized, it was also useful to note that there were on-going Tanzania national efforts especially in the field of traditional herbal ·The experience of the Tanga AIDS Working Group medicine. (TAWG) provides an insight into ways that local commu- ·Networking among institutions and individuals at the nities and NGOs can access government and donor national, regional and international level should be 4 encouraged. Publications like Country Newsletters could enabled the bridging of the geographical and perceptional be used in information sharing. Country-to-Country distance between the 102 participants through the video- Exchange Visits by an interdisciplinary group would also conference facilities of the global development learning enrich country programmes. The World Bank could network. The course effectively demonstrated how facilitate this process through funding specific activities leveraging traditional and modern knowledge systems can but participants would also be expected to contribute to help address development challenges. the budgets. Conferences and workshops at national and The course has contributed significantly towards regional levels should be organized to review progress mainstreaming IK across the four countries. The case and chart the way forward. studies demonstrated the practical applications of IK in helping clients achieve the MDGs. As a result, a number of participants have begun to and/or plan to integrate IK into Conclusion their work programs. Given that most of them work for NGOs, government ministries, universities and national Indigenous knowledge is usually shared among local research and training institutions, they have provided communities and transferred from one generation to the effective entry points for mainstreaming IK. Through the next, through oral traditions and story-telling. The IK impetus provided by the course a number of activities are distance learning course was an effort to facilitate this underway to promote IK at the community/local, project, process among IK practitioners, development practitioners national and policy levels in India, Sri Lanka, Uganda and and policy makers across four countries and two conti- Tanzania. nents. Information communications technology (ICTs) This IK Note was written by Siddhartha Prakash, Consultant,World BankAfrica Region, Knowledge and Learn- ing unit. For more information and a copy of the course DVD, email: sprakash@worldbank.org or Phone: 202-473 5863.