INDIGENOUS CONCEPTS OF COOPERATION AND COMPETITION

INDIGENOUS CONCEPTS OF COOPERATION AND COMPETITION
Summary
While presenting this subject, I would like to deliberate on issues based on African nature, purpose and wisdom, which I am fairly familiar with – relative to other regions of the world. In this regard, my thoughts and expenses are going to be highly coloured with institutions of African communities.
In all African communities an individual is conscious of himself/herself in terms of “I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am”. Kinship makes person intensely naked when moral demands are scrutinized by everybody so that a person who fails to live up to them cannot escape notice. The essence of African cooperation is that it is more ‘societary’ than ‘spiritual’. It is dynamic rather than static for it defines how a person relates to the others rather than who he is among them. Good relationships build a good name while a negative attitude towards others in the family, village or community creates curses and misfortunes. Conversely “a person is what he is because of what he does, rather than what he does because of what he is.” Kindness is not a virtue unless someone is kind. Competition, a very tangible concept on African indigenous life is a product of individual family’s’ recognized state: some families are forced to remain poor as a result of magic’s, sorcery and witchcraft practiced against them. Others maintain a higher economic standard for years and years. Development is measured by the success of a particular family – line for generations. The victims of malicious practices always suffer from very dangerous fears. Such fears inflict in them a negative attitude towards life in general. Development plans cease to continue since whatever they do is checked by opposing powers. For example among the Luo community in Kenya, it is believed once a son from a poor family background builds a modern house or buys a car, he will ultimately die after a short while. This is viewed on the basis that he is trying to climb a ladder above his families’ standard. This has therefore discouraged a number of youths from initiating development plans in their villages and communities. The rich are most likely to remain rich, the poor training their positions unless the victims decide to establish a new settlement preferably in a faraway land where they would be able to develop their fullest potential. Jealousy and negative competition ceases completely since the new neighbor are not aware of the historical nature.
The issues of co-operation and competition have been very cautious in the minds of indigenous Africans and it has brought substantial positive and negative influences. Both of these issues will be discussed at depth.
In every African community there are a number of people who are suspected to possess evil powers and work maliciously against their relatives and neighbours. This is the application of magics, sorcery and witchcraft. In most cases this affect the perception of the victims negatively expanding the possibility of poverty. Those who suffer from such malicious malpractices are generally frustrated and their attempts to develop holistically are thwarted. As has been already realized, mystical power is neither good nor evil in itself but when used wrongly by some individuals it is experienced as evil.
Human relationship is regarded as an important concept of hierarchy based partly on age and partly on status. In practice there is a permanent and authoritative ladder ranging from God, the creator to the youngest child. For the sake of peace and harmony this authority must not be compromised at all! God who is the parent of mankind and the final point of reference and appeal has beneath Him all the divinities and spirits, which are more powerful than man, and some of which were founders and forefathers of different societies. Next comes the living-dead, the more important ones being those who were successful by virtue of going through initiation rites, getting married and raising children. In the human cycle, the hierarchy includes kings, rulers, rainmakers, priests, diviners, medicine men, elders, parents, older brothers, sisters and finally the youngest community members.
According to some African communities, for example the Barundi of Burundi, offending God by committing adultery can cause serious punishment on the victim. The Bachira on the other hand hold to the belief that God punishes severely those who steal, neglect aging parents, murder or commit adultery. Still in other communities the whole people can be punished with locusts, floods, or other calamities. These are known cases of underdeveloped communities in the African setting. Among the Luhya in Kenya, there is always a sacrifice and prayer in the case of long drought. A diviner or seer enquires why God has allowed such an epidemic to come upon them. The animal for sacrifice, usually of one colour and donated or bought from a person who is honest, trustworthy and has never committed murder, theft, rape or any connection with witchcraft is used. This sacrifice cleanses misdeeds and ultimately rainfalls. To the African, rain is a development priority. It can be clearly recognized that offence against God leads to death, separation from Him, withdrawal of free food, loss of morality and the like to the African descendants.
Among the Ankore, Azande, Akan, Swazi, Banyarwanda and others, is thought to have no influence on peoples moral values. Various types of offences are considered to be against the spirits and the living – dead. They are considered to be guardians or police of tribal ethics, morals and customs. Therefore any breach of these customs is an offence both to the human society and the spirit world. In order to avert such malice to the offenders and relatives, there must be the pouring of libation and offerings of bits of food on the family basis.
Within the tightly knit corporate society where personal relationships are so intense and so wide, one finds perhaps the most paradoxical areas of African life. This type of life makes every member of the community dangerously naked in the sight of other members. It is paradoxically the centre of love and hatred, of friendship and enmity, of trust and suspicions, of joy and sorrow, of generous tenderness and bitter jealousness. It is the centre of security and insecurity of building and destroying the individual and the community. A person cannot be individualistic, but only corporate. Every form of pain, misfortune, sorrow; or suffering; every illness and sickness, every death, whether of an old man or infant, every crop or, hunting failure, every bad omen or dream are blamed on somebody in the corporate society. Frustrations, psychic disturbances, emotional tensions and other status of the inner person are readily externalized and incarnated or made concrete in other human being or in circumstances which lay the blame on the external agent. Evidently there are spiritual forces outside man which seem to function within human history and human society.
African communities in the villages are deeply affected and permeated by the psychological atmosphere which creates both real and imaginary powers or forces or even that result to more tensions, jealousness, suspicions, slander, accusations and scapegoats, undermining development plans and strategies in the most critically affected areas. The majority of African peoples believe that God punishes in this life₂. He upholds moral order / law. Misfortunes may therefore be interpreted as indicating that the sufferer has broken moral or ritual conduct against God, the spirits, the elders, or the other members of the society. This however doesn’t contradict the belief that misfortunes are the work of some members, especially magicians, sorcerers, and witches. This village logic is quite normal in African thinking.
Each community or society has it’s own set form of restriction and punishment for various offences, both legal and moral. These range from death for offences like practicing sorcery and witchcraft, committing murder and adultery to paying fines of cattle, sheep or money for minor cases like accidental injury to ones companion. Traditional chiefs and rulers, where they exist, have the duty of keeping law and order, and executing justice in their areas. This helps to rebuild new cooperation although the affected individual or family must feel the pinch.
There is one form of justice administered through the use of the curse. It is believed that if a person is guilty, evil will befall him according to the words used in cursing him. The most feared curses are those pronounced by parents uncles, aunts or other close relatives against their “juniors” in the family. The worst still is that uttered at the death – bed, for once the pronouncer of the curse has died, it can not be practically be revoked. Formal curses are feared much in African societies and this fear, like that of witchcraft helps to check bad relationships especially in family circles.
Another method of establishing and maintaining good human relationships are through formal oaths. For example, there are oaths which bind people mystically together. The best known being the one which crates what is rather loosely referred to as “blood – brotherhood”. By means of this oath, two people who are not immediately related go through a ritual which often involves encouraging small amounts of their blood by drinking or rubbing it into each others body. After that they regard each other as real “blood brothers or sisters” and will behave in that capacity towards each other for the rest of their lives. Their families are also involved in this brotherly contract, so that, for example, their children would not intermarry.
This oath places great moral and mystical obligation upon the parties concerned and any breech of the covenant is dreaded and feared to bring about misfortunes. Oaths range in seriousness; some are meant to bring about death if they are broken, others cause temporary pain or misfortunes of different types. The belief about oaths is that God, or some power higher than the individual man, will punish the person who breaks the requirements of the oath or covenant. Oaths are feared and many are administered ritually and at a great expense. The expenses incurred always pulls down the economic state of the victims.
As in all societies of the world, social order and peace are recognized by African peoples as essential and sacred. Where the sense of cooperative life is so deep, it is inevitable that the solidarity of the community must be maintained, otherwise there is disintegration and destruction. This order is conceived of primarily in terms of kinship relationship, which simultaneously produces many situations of tension since everybody is related to everybody else and deepens the sense of damage caused by the strain of such tensions. For example, if a person steels a goat, personal relations are at once involved because the goat belongs to a member of corporate body, perhaps to the father, or brother, or sister or cousin to the thief. As such it is an offence against the community, and it’s consequences affect not only the thief but whole body of relatives.
It can therefore be high lightened that the concept of cooperation and competition is highly grounded on the knowledge that one cannot cut himself/herself from others and expect to achieve any kind of development. Development is a social agenda and only those who live according to the expected community morals, conducts and values can achieve it.












BEYOND THE CURRENT DEVELOPMENT PARADIGM
Traditional Knowledge Systems
Summary
Traditional knowledge systems are unique local knowledge existing within and developed around the specific conditions of the people, indigenous to a particular geographical area. The traditional knowledge systems covers all aspects of life, including management of the natural environment and is a matter of survival to the people who generated this knowledge. Such knowledge systems are cumulative, representing generations of experiences, careful observations and trial-and –error experiments. Traditional knowledge systems are also dynamic; new knowledge is continuously added. Such do innovate from within and will internalize, use and adopt external knowledge to suit the local situations.
Traditional and indigenous knowledge is stored in people’s memories and activities and is expressed in folklore, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, myths, community laws, stores, local language and taxonomy, agricultural practices, health and hygiene, materials, tools, plant species and animal breeds. Indigenous knowledge is shared (among trusted people) orally, by specific example, and though indigenous forms of communication, culture and organization which are all vital for local level decision-making.
But how does local community compare with formal scientist knowledge? Scientific knowledge attempts to explain causality and a gender that casualty in universally applicable principles, and therefore more useful in predicting outcome of management decision than the trial-and error experience. Local knowledge entirely is based on what people think it is necessary to know. They may see correlations but feel it is unnecessary to explain causality. Local knowledge does not devise generalizable principles and absolutes that allow an understanding of the heterogeneity of local conditions, whilst formal science. Seeks general applicability, but particularly in natural science, has difficulty in attempting to cope with the variability that is found in the real world. By operating at different scales, this view regards the two systems as complimentary. The problem in attempting to combine local and scientific knowledge is that the knowledge is classified in different ways and held in different conception frameworks.
Indigenous technical knowledge, like scientific knowledge, should be regarded in the first place as something which becomes possible as a result of a more generalized intellectual process of creating order out of disorder, and not simply as a response to practical human needs, such as health and sustenance. It seems that the differences between indigenous and scientific knowledge are not at a fundamental, conceptiuonal level but in terms of formal structure, institutional framework, technical facility and ability and scale of perspective. Practically scientific understanding is well equipped to generate universality, while indigenous knowledge is better able to provide detail. These district levels suggest a complementarily.
Many of the challenges of indigenous knowledge (IK) research relate directly or indirectly to the difficulty of studying a subordinate knowledge system (that is IK) using the dominant knowledge system (that is western science). The two knowledge systems may in fact be closer than the dichotomy implies. Similarities appear across the two categories, and differences appear within them. Some academics and many indigenous people do not find it useful to separate IK from international science. However, IK typically gains legitimacy only when it conforms to the theory and practice of western knowledge.
Even when scientists and beaurocrats promote IK, they usually use scientific categories and methods to collect, verify and validate it ( Johnso 1972). A related problem is that the scientific community prefers to deal with quantitative data, rather than the interview or qualitative data that characterizes IK; IK research and some of the social sciences for development.
An interest in indigenous understanding and techniques has not been restricted to the rural resource management. In reviewing lessons learnt in the fields of primary healthcare, literacy and alternative employment programmes we identify the following; that,
• Local experts, traditional and emergent, can offer, adapt new methods to local conditions better than outsiders.
• Local control of change may matter more than a rapid transformation. The process is as important as the initial result, if change is to be sustainable. People may need time and a series of small successful changes in order to develop the will and the capacity for further change;
• New technologies should usually build upon existing practice and knowledge;
• Joint participation between outsiders and rural communities implies dialogue to establish trust and shared goals and to translate and share knowledge;
• Dialogue must take place within communities as well as between community and catalysts.
• Understanding existing knowledge can help determine whether alternatives from outside are appropriate, how they might be adapted, and how best to introduce them.
• Understanding local knowledge systems can help in identifying the needs of the community in other ways. Exposing inaccurate or technically outdated components of local knowledge systems is a useful function in itself because it allows the extension and education to be targeted accordingly – useful information and techniques can best flow from the scientific community to the consumers once we know what they already know and what else might be most useful.
• It may be possible to adopt indigenous techniques to eliminate their harmful effects or enhance their benefits. Such an approach may be desirable since traditional peoples and farmers may be more open to adaptations of a familiar method than to a completely new technique. A blend of indigenous and introduced techniques may be the most appropriate.
We see human action conditioned by the value system and attitudes within a given society and by the amount and type of available resources at a given time and space. Many development projects have failed to live up to expectations as a result of inadequate understanding. We are witnessing the disintegration of the social fabric and in its place find millions of scattered human beings living disconnected lives indifferent to each other despite their common sufferings. Again, are we serious about the involvement of communities?. Then we have to take the risks, trust them, but at the same time we should provide them, and support them. We have to make clear what they can and cannot do, and for which matters they need support. This is an increasing appreciation of the advantages of integrating science and technology with traditional knowledge systems to yield mutually beneficial results from development projects.
The need for this is pressing. Many local organization institutions and the communities themselves have a wealth of knowledge of indigenous practices. However, these practices are not documented effectively because community – based organizations lack the capacity to capture, document, validate and share them. The knowledge is underutilized in the development process, and the local communities are constrained in their abilities to shape the debate in development priorities and lack the means to achieve them.
Certain indigenous knowledge and technologies look superficially like western scientific technology. The use of many traditional herbal medicines resembles western pharmacology, with some herbs having objective indications that are the same for most people; such as certain plants that women use for birth control, or specific plant medicines that are used widely to treat dysentery, tuberculosis, and often infectious diseases and parasites. The pharmaceutical industry is concerned with improving health and well – being, and preventing disease. Its researchers, develops and makes the drugs which treat diseases and symptoms of ill –health and ease conditions of these with incurable physical and mental problems, as well as making medicines for treating livestock and improving agriculture.
It is possible that any herbalist could acquire a formula, knowing that if you have this symptom you can take such and such herb: yet individual herbal medicine functions in a way that is different, not only from western allopathic herbal medicine, but also from oriental herbal medicine. For indigenous herbal medicine incorporates the “the seeking of spirit in the administering of all substances.
According to indigenous African philosophy, you cannot just give an aspirin or cook up a herbal recipe for the purpose of healing. There are two things at work. One is the knowledge of the spiritual nature of the plants, and the second and more important is the knowledge of the energetic configuration ( law of signatures) and the identity and purpose of the person you are treating. It is not the illness possessing the person that is important, but the person possessing the illness. In an indigenous view of illness, the disease is always linked to a breakage in relationship. Some connection is loose or completely absent, or has been severed.
Indeed local medical schools, just like the rest of the world – over concentrate in disease rather than health on treatment rather than prevention, on a prolonging life rather than promoting health. These schools lay emphasis on specialists who can only deal with a few specifics rather than personnel who has a larger scope. This has led to the assumption that good medical care means much machinery. However, people are still concerned that man’s relationship with nature is the key to a strong satisfying and sickness free life. Traditional healers, the main source of health workers are outstanding persons, accepted and recognized members of the community in which they provide healthcare by using herbal substances and, to a laser degree, animal and mineral substances. They live and work in the rural areas, and to them people turn in times of sickness and difficulty, especially where and when western primary healthcare is absent. The duties of medicine men are many and varied and overlap with those of other specialists. There is no fixed rule governing the “calling of someone to become a medicine man”. This may come when still young and unmarried in his middle or late life. In other case a medicine man passes on the profession to his son or trusted person or incase of a man and daughter incase of a woman. Village practitioners enjoy the confidence of the rural clientele. They can treat most of the common ailments which constitute 90% of the disease at a fraction of the modern treatment.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) as many as 80% of the world’s people depend on traditional medicine for their primary healthcare needs (WHO, IUICN, WWF 1983). Modern pharmaceuticals are directed against symptoms. They act swiftly and powerfully to remove the symptoms of disease. Compared to the type of action, it would seem that most of the herbs do not work. For in many cases herbal treatment would be gentler and more gradual in their action and it will rely primarily on allowing the body to heal itself by a slow natural process. Using herbal therapy the body will become stronger and the individual will take to learn something about the factors that lead to the disease in first place, thus giving the opportunity to prevent recurrence. The quick and powerful action of modern pharmaceuticals will bring superficial relief. These drugs when relied on will lead to resistance and a more severe disease later. Herbals do not work that way.
Herbal medicines have worked very well for those who have used them properly, and the literature is replete with most useful drugs. Drugs we do not understand, had their origins in antiquity well before the development of useful bodies of knowledge, the sciences. Traditional herbal medicines have been used for thousands of years across many cultures of the world. Their presence continues even where modern medicines is available because of biomedical benefits and their place in cultural beliefs in many parts of the world. In fact, most modern pharmaceuticals are based on chemical constituents that were at one time isolated from the traditionally used herbs. In 1985, in Europe about 50% and in the USA more than 25% of the drugs in prescription medicine have their origin in plants (Farnsworth et-al, 1985).
Certainty, many people turning to alternative medicines try to cure themselves by using a sprivile of hubs in a cup of boiling water” thus drinking of what they think as an herbal tea. This will accomplish nothing, it is a great myth that delivering beverage teas will cure ailments and provide a healthy life. It is one thing to eliminate the bad habit of drinking coffee and black tea by replacing it with a herbal beverage and unearthing to treat an ailment in a potent medicinal teas or other herbal therapy. Herbal therapies will normally require a fairy large dose of herbs, and an extended period of treatment. In fact it is important to continue treatment beyond the point where the symptoms have vanished; to bring the strength to the deepest level from which the ailment had spring forth. The cornerstone of all natural healing is summarized in the statement “all the healing comes from within and the body treats itself”
Over the centuries, healers, midwives and herbalists tested plants for curing, selected them when effective and passed this empirically acquired knowledge of preparation and use, orally to the next generation. Hence in many regions of the world no written documentation on and individual medicinal plant use is available. The knowledge valuable for locals as well as for westerners, is endangered by the ongoing destructions of natural ecosystems and culture.
Unfortunately, many government have failed to link health matters to improved quality of life-after the Alma –Ata declaration(WHO 1978)₂, that called to governments in the developing countries to give higher priority to traditional medicine and its systems by strengthening the positions of healers by integration of efficient traditional remedies in the primary healthcare (PHC) systems. The Alma Ata declaration recognized the role of traditional herbal medicines for the achievement of “Health for All”. The primary healthcare strategy takes into account of disease, sanitation, nutrition, water-systems, housing, energy, education among others. To-date , traditional medicines practices and medicines have not been sufficiently integrated into health systems and services in most WHO member states. This is mainly due to denial or partial recognition of traditional medicines and their communities by policy workers of the contributions of traditional herbal medicines. This is not tangible collaboration between the two systems.
Whilst considering all reforms of political, social, economic nature, as required, health reforms need to be considered fast as series of all sectors. The health sector is the key social sector in development. And certainly, action in the health field can be instrumental in bringing about reforms in the social and economic fields. These in turn can lead to further health reforms. This is the upward thrust of human development. Health is a critical part of life to overcome poverty. We need to know how knowledge and comprehension functioned. Do some of the traditional beliefs and explanations of occurrence have a scientific base? I believe the answers to that questions could b greatly help in the integration of indigenous and cultural concepts knowledge and forms with the modern science and technology to make them more productive.


HOW TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE DIALOGUES WITH MODERN ECONOMY

Summary

The various uses and importance of traditional knowledge and nature are well – known. All the worlds civilizations have used various products from nature (micro – organisms, plants, soil, animals, among others) and human beings have been making micro – organisms, plants, animals work for them for a very long time even before knowing the basic facts about them.
A number of primitive biological processes and curative collections and useful plants were known to the ancient world. The Egyptians 500 years ago produced “leavened” bread and a kind of beer from fermented cereals. The Greeks and Romans produced wine and spread it across the world through their influence. This process went down the centuries until “pure yeast” became commercially available. Similarly a Greek Pheophrastus, 3,300 years ago noted the soil seemed to have more fertility after broad beans had grown in them. He used the soil to fertilize other fields. It took another 2,200 years before the French Chemist Piera Berthlot in 1885 suggested that some organisms in the soil might be able to convert or “fix” atmospheric nitrogen into a form that plants could use as fertilizer. The very next year, the German botanist, Hermon Hellonagel said that this fixing was carried out by bacteria that form nitrites on the roots of the leguminous plants.
The earliest known written record of prescribed drugs appears on a set of clay tablets that were uses by ancient Sumerians in the Middle East , at least 4,000 years ago.

Most of the drugs listed on the tablets were made from plants. Ancient records from China and Egypt gave instructions of preparing drugs from plants. Various cultures in the world have used biological diversity especially plants and micro organisms) for thousands of years. Most anthropologists think that the use of plants to cure various ills goes back to the dawn of humanity, long before written history.
When simple explanations of these simple processes began to be established, these simple culture collections and plants became the basis of great industries; improved techniques have given us new and far reaching powers over micro organisms and plants. In fact modern biotechnology is enabling scientists to change and manipulate micro organisms and plants in ways portrayed in science fiction, just a few years ago.
We should not also forget before modern era crops development was carried out by farmers and that most of these developments were complete – even before Pharaohs ceased ruling –Egypt. Most of the traditional peoples have invented and developed complex and elegant styles that are locale specific for growing their traditional crops in sequence and mixtures. All these is done using resources and methods within their command.
It has now become evident that traditional farmers approaches as answering, using and improving plant genetic resources are still viable and supporting the formal agricultural systems. The conservation and use of plant genetic resources has a human dimension for the future – especially at farm and community level. Social factors, such as decision making patterns and social organizations, must be taken into account. An understanding of gender variables will be crucial in any such understanding.
Local knowledge about plants and the innovation systems of individuals and communities are invaluable resource in the search for new ways of conserving and using plants. Such knowledge provides a critically important adjuvant to the normal passport, the generic improvement of crops. And for the generic improvement to succeed, we must harness the wealth of folklore provides by traditional knowledge as well as generic variations provided by nature. Unfortunately, it is of growing concern that indigenous knowledge about cultivated and wild species from which cultivated crops were taken is being lost rapidly.
As we head into the new millennium, the world faces a greater demand on agricultural out put than at any other time in history. Despite efforts to curb birth rates, the earth’s human population is expected to rise to over 9 billion by the year 2030, corresponding to more than 50% increase from the current population 3. In the past, we have met the demand for increased agricultural productivity in a combination of generic improvements, greater farming inputs (fertilizers, pesticides) and water, and cultivation of more land. With demanding fresh water resources and petroleum resources (on which fertilizers and pesticides are based) and increased problems caused by agricultural pollution, we can hardly expect to increase or even maintain our current levels of agricultural inputs.
Similarly of much existing farmland is falling victim of urban expansion, and it is unlikely that new farmland will become available in the near future. That leaves the traditional knowledge systems of crop production and raising livestock a possible viable approach by which food production and poverty alleviation can attempt to keep pace with the anticipated growth of the human population in the developing countries of the world.
To – day, modern agriculture and for that matter human existence is depended on the cultivation of a few highly productive crop species requiring a lot of inputs. These food crops were first domesticated from wild species about 10,000 years ago during the transformation from nomadic hunter – gatherers to life in agrarian societies. Following domestication, the genetic variation in cultivated crop plants has continued to be redced by another force – modern plant breeding methodologies, has produced the high – yielding crop varieties on which modern agriculture is based. Yet ironically, it is the plant breeding process itself that threatens the genetic base on which breeding depends. Because new varieties are usually derived from crosses among genetically related modern varieties, generally more variable, but less productive, primitive ancestor are excluded.
For many tropical and subtropical countries of the world, biological diversity (biodiversity) is the most important natural resource available for improving the economic and livelihoods of the poor people. Recognizing the close and traditional dependence of many indigenous and local communities’ economic beliefs, arising from the uses of traditional knowledge, innovations, practices, embodying traditional lifestyles on biodiversity, the latter’s conservation and sustainable use must be enhanced. Biological diversity is the most important available natural resource and it’s potential for social – economic development and must be conserved for future generations.
Biological resources are one important resource for the impressive growth of pharmaceutical, chemical and agro chemical industries. Patients from native and the traditional and indigenous knowledge linked to their uses in – day to day life have inspired generations of inventors to create a vast array of products ranging from Aspirin to Bacillus thwigensis and phosphnothin to zocor, some which generate annual sales of US $ 1billion.
Traditional knowledge associated with the biota of the identity and utility of specific organisms, and plants for medicinal and other uses has an intrinsic value as part of our cultural patrimony and is currently as source of primary healthcare for millions of people. It may offer important leads for future treatments of numerous human and livestock ailments as well as improving agriculture. Biological resources benefit local populations and also have become the genetic fuel for the world pharmaceutical industries, seeking cures of world ailments. Drugs developed from traditional medicines will result in income for the countries of source. For example, today, the cost of treating one patient with malaria for one – year is about US $ 2,500.
The tropical forests have been the source of 60% of the anticancer drugs, discovered in the last 20 years and after a potentially huge economc reason for preserving the forests and the indigenous knowledge based on the US $ 200 million market for plant derived drugs. However, the pace of discovering and development of drugs may be too slow and overtaken compared to the certain, immediate pay – offs from timber and charcoal sales.
In many countries of the world, biological richness is quite often part of the lands’ cultural and national identity. For example, East African countries are known for Eco – tourism, endowed with an impressive wildlife than any where in the world. Even a country’s non – commercial diversity is as important as its commercial value.
Biological resources provide many kinds of goods and services too. The resources that are consumed to meet human needs, such as medicinal plants, meat, fish, timber, leave the most obvious kinds of economic value, Examples include natural resources that promote tourism or ecotourism or recreation. The price that people pay for ecotourism for example, can be used to estimate that value of a recreational site. Forests can be valued as a factor of how much carbon they sequencer and then keep out of the atmosphere.
In the 21st century, biodiversity and traditional knowledge systems have for more challenges in the modern economic order – to satisfy the unmet needs for millions who need them but are caught up in the consuming wave of poverty. Loss of biodiversity through deforestation, desertification, not only provides materials and knowledge, that would be needed to create pharmaceuticals but eliminate herbal medicines – a primary source of healthcare for 80% of the world’s population (WHO 1978) and accelerate the loss of traditional knowledge.
The underlying causes of biodiversity and traditional knowledge loss as many and complex and involve interwoven social, economic and political elements. A number of environmental issues are driven primarily socio –economic forces. It is clear however that poverty, unemployment and lack of economic opportunities are significant crucial factors developing countries, struggling to meet the most basic human needs, efforts to protect biological diversity will succeed only if implemented in the context of promoting sustained economic growth. Likewise, to be effective, efforts to protect biological diversity must include the active participation of affected local communities which will ultimately determine the success or failure of such efforts. Biological
The sustainable economic potential of biological resources, such as developing pharmaceuticals from natural products can be used to provide biodiversity conservation by providing an economic return from sustainable use of the resources while improving the quality of life through better human health and education. Experience suggests that the development of significant conservation incentives is most likely when both near and long – term benefits accrued to stake holders.

RESEARCH PROGRAMMES

KEY THEMES.

1. TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS

Traditional knowledge systems are unique local knowledge existing with and developed around the specific conditions of the people, indigenous to a particular geographical area. These traditional knowledge systems covers all aspects of life, including management of the natural environment and is a matter of survival to the people who generated this knowledge.

Traditional and indigenous knowledge is stored in people’s memories and activities and is expressed in folklore, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, myths, community laws, stories, local languages and taxonomy, animal breeds. Traditional and indigenous knowledge is shared (among trusted people) orally, by specific example, and through indigenous forms of communication, culture and organization, which are vital for local level decision – making.

Indigenous technical knowledge, like specific knowledge, should be regarded in the first place as something, which becomes possible as a result of a more generalized intellectual process of creating order out of disorder. It seems that the differences between indigenous and specific knowledge are not at a fundamental conceptual level but in terms of formal structure, institutional framework, technical facility and ability and scale of perspective. Practically scientific understanding is well equipped to generate universality, while Traditional knowledge is better able to provide detail. These district levels suggest a complementarity.

The development of science, technical and industrial productivity is the component of modern society that influences us most. The development of technology makes it possible to produce more and more goods with fewer and fewer workers. Joblessness born from lack of technological development is a world – wide problem and a chronic illness in African countries, as the increasing number of street and destitute children and idle youths shows in towns and rural areas. In the past times men moved from the lands to the mines and factories. Their children were educated and moved to offices, or laboratories, as civil servants, skilled technicians or executives. But the year 2000 or earlier, offices and laboratories are full. There is little room for young people, university graduates, including medical doctors, have difficulty finding employment. This new situation is here to stay. Science and technology creates new jobs and joblessness. Joblessness can be a source of deviant behaviour.

THIN organization recognizes that there are important applied problems in the health management of human, plant, crop, livestock, environmental, health, conservation and sustainable utilization of biodiversity and natural resources. Yet many local communities in many areas benefit from generations of experiences of the management of complex health systems that take advantage of the benefits and sustainability associated with complexity. But in several crucial cases these applied problems cannot be specifically approached without further basic scientific and technical knowledge. There is an increasing appreciation of the advantages of incorporating science and technology with traditional technical knowledge systems and practices to yield mutually beneficial results from development projects.
The need for this is pressing.

However, we see human action conditioned by value systems and attitudes within a given society and by the amount and type of available resources at a given time and space. The delivery of healthcare services is such as a major participating research and development opportunity and it seems reasonable to suppose that these experiences provides an impartial resource in understanding such systems for practical purposes. For example, it may be possible to adapt indigenous techniques to eliminate their harmful effects or enhance their benefits. At the same time, we are witnessing the disintegration of the social fabric and in it’s place find millions of scattered human beings living disconnescted lives different to each other despite their common sufferings and knowledge base.

National development plans have not been keen to consider understanding local conditions. This has resulted in unsustainable land use practices, frequent natural disasters, such as floods, drought. There is no nuxus between poverty reduction and sustainable development in current policy formulations. The role of major groups, communities, industry, the business, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Community – based organizations (CBOs), women, youth is inadequately mainstreamed in leading policy and institutional formulations, resulting in widespread or non-achievement. Traditionally the economies of the traditional healthcare industry and enterprise has taken second place to national economic policy, let alone it’s workings, wages and earnings.

Understanding local knowledge systems can help in identifying the needs of the community in other ways. Exposing inaccurate or technically outdated components of local knowledge system is useful in itself because it allows for extension and education to be targeted accordingly. Useful information and techniques can best flow from the scientific community to the local people including practitioners and land users – once we know what they already know and what also might be most useful to add to their store of knowledge and tools. Technology creates new jobs and joblessness.


Outcomes Brief description of cooperation strategies Major lines of Action Programme modality
 Sustainability in the human condition and conditions of the environment and ecosystems

 Long term commitment for researchers, partners, communities, students, among others Identify priority education, learning, research training in traditional health knowledge systems and identify development of strategies for resource mobilization and gender mainstreaming. • Set up reflective institutions (where people can partner, question, learn and trust each other.
• Carry out institutional capacity building including education, training of the young generations and communities.
• Have strategies for communites to validate, document and apply useful new knowledge from traditional as well as scientific platforms Collaboration of programmes and implementation.


THEME 2

INTEGRATED HUMAN HEALTH AND WELFATRE DELIVERY
Most success in health related issues can be attributed to the remarkable breakthroughs achieved in scientific and biomedical researches . not withstanding the disgraceful state of health in developing countries like Kenya is grossly Inadequate.
Among the problems that have emerged are:
• Increasing pressure on public sector financial resources not only for expanding the health facilities and services but also in responding to increasing demands from a high population growth rate.
• An inadequate spatial distribution of health service in the country due to low community participation in many areas and the difficult physical environments obtaining especially in the arid and semi- arid areas.
• Shortage of manpower and management expertise fro the running of health services.
• A low level of hospital occupational efficiency epitomized by a more than 100% bed occupancy rate co-existing with the high cost per patient per day.
• Lack of proper public information and education which would guide the people themselves to develop competence in meeting the basic requirements of good health.
It is said that improper transplantation of technology has led to alienation of health care mechanisms, while value systems in the services concerned have been neglected. Thus whenever technological solutions are proposed for the developing world, we should keep in mind the salient problems and characteristic not only finding enough material enough material resources but also matching them with specific cultural patterns and educational levels of given communities. There is therefore a great need for more humanitarian approach to health delivery aiming at the association research, implementation and delivery through consideration of the socio-economic advancement in relation to nature . for example because we are formed from much of nature, we are able to feel, respond and communicate with nature around us.
The health of our bodies is closely related to the health of the earth, caring for the earth also results in our own better health and our communities. It is impossible to separate ourselves from and live without nature.
Some international authorities are convinced that the developing countries must increase their investments in health if they are to generate human energy required to extricate themselves from their dive economic situation.



MAJOR HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT CONSTRAINTS

• INFORMATION

Planning for health services and facilities in an underdeveloped country like Kenya is frequently made more difficult by the paucing of information concerning health and disease in most part of the country, particularly when the information as to social and cultural development and disease prevalence is almost completely missing.

• PERSONNEL

Local medical schools just like the rest of the world over the concentrate on disease rather than health, on treatment rather than prevention, on prolonging life rather than promoting health. These schools lay emphasis on specialists.


Who can only deal with a few specifics rather than personnel who have a large scope. The majority of medical schools graduates only function in environments in which they are trained. That is why doctors in developing countries like Kenya refuse to work in district hospitals because they are highly dependent on gadgetry and addicted to drugs. This makes it expensive and only available in the top – income groups, although insurance schemes and fund – drives extend it to a limited few in the lower income bracket.
- Pharmaceutical firms are also accused of not developing drugs for the tropical disease, which they claim does not give profit after extensive research in such drugs. The enforcement of the World Health Organization (WHO) essential drug list is yet to be done. The lack of a national drug policy does not improve things in Kenya. Advertising directed at the layman is also allowed.

- Improper use of chemicals and drugs in particular expose humans as well as living things (humans, animals, immediate environment) to possible toxic effects, either directly or residues in livestock products. This leads to emergence of resistance by parasites to control drugs as has occurred for anti-malarials and acaricides.



The various aspects outlined above are all likely to be proportionally greater for the poor who comprise 60% of the Kenyan population. The poor do not have access to preventive and curative treatment, animal breeding services, veterinary drugs, information and advice. This is exacerbated by high population growth rates which remain high in the face of low economic growth rates which have continued to all in the last two decades. Diseases of human as will as animal and those from the disturbed environment have additional direct and indirect impacts on human nutrition, community development and socio – cultural values. The inadequacy of these services has been attributed to the failure of the central publicly funded services owing to diminishing national incomes, cuts in foreign aid.

Lack of connection between / aiming different stakeholders, groups especially among traditional practitioners, healers, providers, associations and modern health providers.


Outcomes Brief description of cooperating strategies Major lines of Action Programme modality
An integrated health delivery system based on primary healthcare strategy.

Reduced vulnerability • Partnershios working together as ateam to develop methods of study and implementation that provides a remarkably complete picture of the rural as well as living conditions and of the prevelance of diseases, particularly infectios and nutritional disorders.

Establishment of major reseach and training and educational phase

• Mechanisms for official recognition of qualified traditional health providers, their code of conduct, quality of services and drugs.

Collaboration between community based providers and modern healthcare providers in the areas of organization, management, information sharing and operations.

• A curriculum that addresses and integrates education about a range categorical health priorities and issues on developmental appropriate ages in schools. • Mobilize multi disciplinar approaches: working with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and other stakeholders. Disciplines include; epidemiology, social anthropology, sanitary science, entomology, pollution, public health and laboratory services enhanced.

• Capacity building at all levels
• Technical cooperation through information, training research extension.

• Developed mechanisms to local health production and marketing of natural medicines and other health products.

• Establishment of community – based herbal health clinics.

• Established programme resorce framework.

THEME 2

INTEGRATED HUMAN HEALTH AND WELFATRE DELIVERY
Most success in health related issues can be attributed to the remarkable breakthroughs achieved in scientific and biomedical researches . not withstanding the disgraceful state of health in developing countries like Kenya is grossly Inadequate.
Among the problems that have emerged are:
Increasing pressure on public sector financial resources not only for expanding the health facilities and services but also in responding to increasing demands from a high population growth rate.
An inadequate spatial distribution of health service in the country due to low community participation in many areas and the difficult physical environments obtaining especially in the arid and semi- arid areas.
Shortage of manpower and management expertise fro the running of health services.
A low level of hospital occupational efficiency epitomized by a more than 100% bed occupancy rate co-existing with the high cost per patient per day.
Lack of proper public information and education which would guide the people themselves to develop competence in meeting the basic requirements of good health.
It is said that improper transplantation of technology has led to alienation of health care mechanisms, while value systems in the services concerned have been neglected. Thus whenever technological solutions are proposed for the developing world, we should keep in mind the salient problems and characteristic not only finding enough material enough material resources but also matching them with specific cultural patterns and educational levels of given communities. There is therefore a great need for more humanitarian approach to health delivery aiming at the association research, implementation and delivery through consideration of the socio-economic advancement in relation to nature . for example because we are formed from much of nature, we are able to feel, respond and communicate with nature around us.
The health of our bodies is closely related to the health of the earth, caring for the earth also results in our own better health and our communities. It is impossible to separate ourselves from and live without nature.
Some international authorities are convinced that the developing countries must increase their investments in health if they are to generate human energy required to extricate themselves from their dive economic situation.

HEALTH DEVELOPMENT

INFORMATION

Planning for health services and facilities in an underdeveloped country like Kenya is frequently made more difficult by the paucing of information concerning health and disease in most part of the country, particularly when the information as to social and cultural development and disease prevalence is almost completely missing.
PERSONNEL
Local medical schools just like the rest of the world over the concentrate on disease rather than health, on treatment rather than prevention, on prolonging life rather than promoting health. These schools lay emphasis on specialists.

implementation.