Indigenous Knowledge: Local Pathways to Local Development

Indigenous Knowledge: Local Pathways to Local Development is a document that was published in 2004 from the Knowledge and Learning Group, Africa Region; The World Bank.

http://www.worldbank.org/afr/ik/ikcomplete.pdf 

This is a publication from the World Bank outlining “solutions for local development.” It highlights a number of successful initiatives that have included the local people. Its mandate is: “We recognize that knowledge is not the exclusive domain of technologically advanced societies. We need to give a new meaning to empowering poor people and helping to give them voice—not as recipients of knowledge, but as contributors and protagonists of their own development.” 

What I found interesting was one of the chapters titled: Indigenous Knowledge and Science and Technology: Conflict, Contradiction or Concurrence?  which has an excerpt that I found enlightening:

“Indigenous knowledge is today considered relevant in the social and human development domains. Its contribution to science and technology is often underestimated or not known. For example, the Maasai pastoralists actively immunized their herds by inoculating healthy animals with saliva froth of freshly diseased ones. Similar was the practice of English midwives, who stored molding bread with their delivery utensils and cloths. Yet, Pasteur received recognition for pioneering vaccination and Fleming for the discovery of penicillin.” 

At the end of the publication there is a table entitled: Institutional Constraints in Adapting Local Knowledge Innovations, that lists some of the barriers that are encountered.  It is a very interesting read.