Indigenous Knowledge

Key Focus Areas of Indigenous Knowledge

Aiming to cultivate and bolster economic progress and the development of an inclusive economy by working toward five indicators:

Cosmetic and Medicinal products
Local agronomic practices
Craftsmanship and textile
Nutritional products
Cultural tourism

Our Indigenous Knowledge thematic area is focused on developing social, economic and environmental solutions that build upon our culture, heritage and traditional knowledge. In an effort to strengthen the livelihoods of our local communities through the capacitation of our culture and social economies.

It is often transmitted orally or through demonstration and imitation and is learned by repetition.

Among other things, Indigenous knowledge is a marker of a people’s identity and civilizational progression, as well as a systemic way of knowledge production traversing practices, innovation and experiences relating to, among other considerations, the environment, ecology, culture, health, medicines, cosmology, farming, food, agriculture, songs, dance, music, language, poetry, religion, spirituality, social order and socialization, gender roles, arts, crafts and education.

Science, technology, and innovation (STI) processes have commonly been transferred from developed countries to developing countries. For our developmental trajectory for our IS, a substantial amount of attention has been directed towards the transfer of skills and equipment from developed countries (Jauhianen & Hooli, 2017).

Indigenous Knowledge is used at the local level by communities as the basis for decisions pertaining to food security, human and animal health, education, and natural resource management. IK is a key element of the social capital of the rural communities in Africa as IK constitutes their main asset in their efforts to gain control over their own lives. The flow of indigenous knowledge communication is necessary for preservation, development and sustainability of local wisdom.

Leveraging social capital for ‘rural’ livelihood diversification: Empowering local/rural communities to leverage their own social and natural capital to give them autonomy over their own livelihoods.

"When we import knowledge at the expense of Indigenous Knowledge, our major loss is African Identity.” ….“Knowledge is now the new extractive industry...and if we do not value our own knowledge, it is easier for others to appropriate it.”.

For the first and second industrial revolutions (circa 1760 -1950s), most of Africa was under colonial rule. Colonialism supervised the transition of Africa to independent Westphalian states. African Indigenous knowledge systems were among the targets of colonialism’s strategy of devaluation of otherness as a justification of colonial ideology and the West’s presumed superiority. This approach was ingrained in colonial education and the overall modus operandi of colonial overlords in their relationships with Africa and Africans.

Indigenous knowledge is locally embedded knowledge that is context-specific, accumulated over time, and unique to a given culture, society, or local community.

Developmental research has identified IK as a strategic direction of the innovation policy in many SSA countries: IK may provide comparative advantage towards fostering the content and impact of IS in developing countries and create needed related varieties of IS. However, various challenges exist in the creation of IK-based innovations and accommodating these innovations as inherent parts of innovation policy.

“Indigenous Knowledge is a key element of the social capital of the poor and constitutes their main asset in their efforts to gain control of their own lives.” Directly linked to SDG 10: Reduce inequalities.

Rural Livelihoods/sustainable community livelihoods – human capital development
Local Economy - – heterogenous products (natural capital): Nutrition, medicinal, lifestyle, arts & crafts
Local Traditions – cultural preservation (social capital): agriculture, food preparation and conservation, healthcare, and education
Natural Resource Management: Ecological Restoration

Livelihood diversification is a process by which household members construct a diverse portfolio of activities and social support capabilities in their struggle for survival and to improve their standards of living

Product development from IK: Value addition for job creation, income generation, and food security