May 28, 2001 The World Bank's Indigenous Knowledge for Development Program, the US National Institute of Health and representatives of African traditional healers have agreed to work together on validating herbal treatments of HIV/AIDS-related opportunistic infections. In a seminar hosted by the World Bank's indigenous knowledge program earlier this week, the Tanga AIDS Working Group (TAWG) of Tanzania and the Center for Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Agricultural By-Products (CIKSAP) of Kenya presented their approaches to healthcare, based on indigenous knowledge. In Tanzania, TAWG has treated over 2,000 AIDS patients with herbs prescribed by traditional healers. And in Kenya, CIKSAP facilitated an exchange between local communities of Maasai pastoralists and Luo farmers on medicinal and food plants. Government leaders and civil society groups called for learning from local communities at the First Global Knowledge Conference in 1997 in Toronto. The World Bank responded by launching the Indigenous Knowledge (IK) for Development Program in partnership with a dozen organizations. The program's goal is to enable the development community to learn more about indigenous and traditional practices in local communities to better adapt global knowledge to local conditions, and to design activities to better serve the community needs. At this week's seminar, representatives of the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the George Washington Hospital Center for Integrative Medicine and the World Bank discussed ways to build partnerships between traditional health practitioners and the scientific community. "This meeting is just the beginning of a process," said Nicolas Gorjestani, head of World Bank's IK program. "We have succeeded in bringing together and brokering a cooperation between development practitioners in the field, the scientific community and World Bank to come together and begin looking at the process of validation of some of these traditional practices." So far, the Indigenous Knowledge for Development Program has identified and disseminated more than 200 cases where indigenous knowledge has played a role in solving local development problems. For example, the Bank has learned how indigenous knowledge systems have helped, - health workers in Iganga District, Uganda reduce maternal mortality within three years by 50 percent;
- farmers in Pratabgarh District, India increase their income within five years by 60 percent;
- women in the village of Malicounda, Senegal lead a local movement that within four years brought female genital cutting to a halt in 200 communities.
We are trying to learn how local communities are solving daily development problems," Gorjestani said. "We think this is important for us for three basic reasons: first that it solves development problems and has impact. Second reason is that we would like to play the role of a broker in the increasingly interrelated interconnected learning society and knowledge economy. The World Bank can play an important role in bringing together different knowledge systems and learn from different communities in order to solve development problems. The third reason is that it helps us to respond better to the requests and to the calls from the civil society groups." In South Africa, for example, the IK Program, supported in cooperation with the Global Mechanism of the Convention to Combat Desertification a community-to-community exchange. Small holder farmers growing Rooibos-tea in a Western Cape Province community were successfully exporting their tea to Europe. An NGO, Environmental Monitoring Group, thought that other tea-growing communities could benefit from their experience. In June 2000 over a dozen farmers of Suid Bokkeveld visited their neighbors to discuss crop quality, processing and marketing. The outcome: the visiting farmers returned to their communities, shared what they learned, set up a farmers' co-operative, improved their post-harvest processing and landed a $ 15,000 order from a European importer. Building on the lessons from this pilot exchange, similar activities are under way in East Africa: - In Kenya, the IK Program is sponsoring an exchange between Maasai pastoralists and Luo farmers. A Maasai community in the Ngong Hills created a museum in their village, to educate of their youth and preserve the local material culture and language. The community has also set up a project to conserve local trees and document their medicinal properties. The Luo community of rural farmers in Western Kenya is equally innovative. With Word Bank-support, the Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Agricultural By-Products (CIKSAP) facilitated an exchange between these two communities on the development and marketing of indigenous medicinal and food products.
- In Tanzania, the impact of TAWG has been most significant in alleviating some opportunistic infections caused by the HIV/AIDS: some patients have lived longer by up to five years. In the Tanga regional hospital, TAWG traditional healers and medical doctors work closely together testing patients for HIV, treating them and providing counseling. TAWG has also set up an information center for AIDS education. The group also provides home care for people living with AIDS. To replicate the success of the group, the World Bank is supporting exchanges with other communities in East Africa.
Useful links: World Bank's Indigenous Knowledge for Development Programin English, French, Portuguese, Wolof and Swahili. | | 
Participants at this week's indigenous knowledge seminar meet with
reporters Thursday
The World Bank's Nicolas Gorjestani: "We have succeeded in bringing together and brokering a cooperation between development practitioners in the field, the scientific community and the World Bank to come together and begin looking at the process of validation of some of these
traditional practices
Bank staff advices clients on the use of IK in medicinal plants
Tanga AIDS working group
TAWG healer treats 2,000 AIDS patients using three herbs
TAWG staff provide counseling
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