Information and Communication Technologies, Knowledge Management and Indigenous Knowledge

1
Information and Communication Technologies,
Knowledge Management and Indigenous Knowledge

• Implications for Communities in Ethiopia

Lishan Adam, PhD Research ICT Africa
19 April 2007
2
Agenda

• Information and communication technologies and IK
• Community structures for promoting IK systems in
  Ethiopia
• Knowledge Management and Indigenous Knowledge
  systems
• Best practices around the world
• Conclusion

In Africa, when an old man dies, it is a library
that burns down. Amadou Hampâté Bâ
3
What is indigenous knowledge?

• Profound, detailed and shared knowledge, beliefs
  and rules with regards to the physical resource,
  social norms, health, ecosystem, culture,
  livelihood of the people who interact with
  environment both in rural and urban settings
• Knowledge that forms basis for local level
  decision making in agriculture, health care, food
  preparation, education, natural resource
  management, and a host of other activities

4
Indigenous knowledge

• Dynamic and evolved from years of experience and
  trial-and-error problem solving by groups of
  people working in their environments drawing upon
  resources they have at hand
• Often shunned by modern scientific knowledge

5
What are some roles of the ICTs

• include telecommunications technologies such as
  telephony, cable, satellite and radio, as well as
  digital technologies, such as computers,
  information networks and software
• ICTs
• Enable capturing, storing and sharing of
  indigenous knowledge
• Support the incorporation of indigenous knowledge
  with modern scientific and technical knowledge
• Create easily accessible indigenous knowledge
  information systems
• Promote integration of indigenous knowledge in
  formal and non-formal training
• Provide a platform for advocating for improved
  benefit of the poor from their intellectual
  property rights and indigenous creators

6
Characteristics of IK that impact on ICTs

• IK is generated within communities
• IK is location and culture specific
• IK is part of the local ecosystem
• IK covers human and animal life, primary
  production, natural resource management (basic
  needs)
• Use of IK is cost-effective, sustainable and
  locally manageable
• IK is dynamic , innovative, adaptive and open for
  experimentation
• IK is oral and rural in nature
• IK is not systematically documented
• IK is not integrated into modern scientific and
  technical knowledge

7
Challenges in applying ICTs

• All IK does not require ICTs can be captured on
  paper, books
• Knowledge holder often do not volunteer their
  knowledge
• IK databases and capturing process is laborious
  and time consuming
• Significant unresolved intellectual property
  issues and challenges especially if the
  traditional knowledge leads to corporate gains
• People who need IK may not have access to the
  technologies to make use of them
• Those who read IK or access to databases are
  biased towards modern knowledge
• Need to put in place and strengthen community
  structures that promote the flow of IK

8
Community Structures for IK - interface

• Recent practice focuses on the development of IK
  databases and encourage their use by target
  groups
• The model was not successful in many cases
• Important to encourage the flow and systematic
  gathering of IK through existing community
  structure such as idir, iqub, community
  resources centres, community libraries, etc.
• Less high-tech approach to IK by focusing on
  index of what works, where to find and whom to
  contact

9
Role of Libraries and IRCs

• Collecting, preserving and disseminate indigenous
  and local traditional knowledge
• Publicizing the value, contribution, and
  importance of indigenous and local traditional
  knowledge to both non-indigenous and indigenous
  peoples
• Raising awareness on the protection of indigenous
  knowledge against exploitation
• Involving elders and communities in the
  production of resources and teaching children to
  understand and appreciate the traditional
  knowledge
• Encouraging the recognition of principles of
  intellectual property to ensure the proper
  protection and use of indigenous traditional
  knowledge and products derived from it.

10
Role of MPCCs

• Venue for ICT introduction to community
• Platform for sharing digitized IK
• Platform for trying new technologies and tools
  out
• Community broadcasting can be used for exchange
  of IK

11
Role of Community Based Structures

• Community based social-capital structure such as
  idir and iqub have been platforms for
  exchange of IK
• Can be used to capture and exchange knowledge or
  develop indices of IK on what works and what
  does not, who holds relevant knowledge and how
  to contact them in electronic and non-electronic
  formats
• Form the basis of IK systems in Ethiopia

12
Example of Best Practices 1

• Honey Bee Network
• Gathered over 11,000 IK innovations in India
• Provide venture funds to turn ideas and practices
  into product enterprise development
• Establish competition on recipes for women
• Protection of intellectual property rights and
  rewarding innovators
• Annual innovators meeting, market place
• Promotion of changes into the educational systems

13
Example of Best Practice 2

• Policy development in South Africa
• IK policy approved by Cabinet in 2004
• Covers aspects such as
• Institutional and governance arrangement
• Gathering and preserving IK
• Networks and support mechanism for IK
• Research and development
• Intellectual property rights

14
Lesson for KM for Development 1
Biggest lesson was understanding the nature of
indigenous knowledge

• Tacit knowledge - unconscious and intuitive
  knowledge gained through experience that allows
  individuals to make decisions without referring
  to rules or principles (e.g. knowing how to
  perform medical operations, knowing how to
  network at a conference)
• Explicit knowledge that is articulated and
  accessible to anyone who reads, hears or looks at
  it (e.g. a training guide on using a software
  package or the conclusions of a policy briefing
  paper)
• Implicit knowledge helps individuals know what
  is socially and culturally appropriate in a given
  circumstance including shared beliefs, values and
  expectations (e.g. knowing that it is
  inappropriate to undermine colleagues in public,
  understanding management attitudes within a given
  organization)
• Indigenous knowledge is mainly tacit/implicit.
  That makes is hard for capturing and exchange

15
Lesson from Km for development 2

• Sharing knowledge is possible but that does not
  always translate into use for taking decisions,
  making informed actions and modifying behaviors
  in order to achieve development goals.
• Effective knowledge sharing should not be imposed
  from outside but should be organic, learned and
  has to be embedded into work processes, local eco
  systems and livelihoods
• Experiences from which most knowledge emerges,
  have local particularities like context, actors
  and processes. This limits the way local
  knowledge can be generalized and replicated in
  other settings
• Valuable local knowledge is often not locally
  known nor socially recognized. This is partially
  constrained by myths, old paradigms, cultural
  idiosyncrasies and prejudices of professionals
  and institutions
• The interaction between modern and traditional
  knowledge is desired but too complex to realize

16
Conclusions

• Focus on IK would help the poor to build on
  resources in which they are rich knowledge
• Ethiopia needs to embark on various steps
• Create forums of institutions and networking
  among these
• Research on mapping IK asset (medicinal plants),
  barriers, community and social structures
• Strategies for identifying and document IK and
  institutional and support initiatives
• National register on IK, rewarding innovators,
  integrating IK in educational systems
• Capacity building in IK and knowledge management
• IK policy based on developing country experiences

17
Rabbit, where are you going?I am going to
kill the Elephant (IK).Can you do that?Well,
Ill try, and try again. Tanzanian,
ProverbThank you