Ministers emphasise role of IKS in development

Kgomotso Molelekeng | Thursday February 13, 2014 21:17

 

At the official opening of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) IKS workshop in Gaborone this week, Siele said that indigenous knowledge is unique to any given culture or society. He said the knowledge forms the basis for local level decision making in agriculture, health care, food preparation, education and natural resources management.

“It is a basic component of any country’s knowledge system as it encompasses the skills, experience and insights of people applied to maintain or improve livelihoods,” he said.

He explained that the Rural Development Council (RDC) is doing all it can to help improve livelihoods and the utilisation of IKS. “The government should fully appreciate and support IKS holders, practitioners and traditional institutions in order to realise the full potential of IKS,” he said.  The workshop was attended by representatives from nine countries and was held under the theme: ‘Promotion, protection, development and management of Indigenous Knowledge System’. The workshop ended yesterday. 

The Minister of Infrastructure, Science and Technology, Johnnie Swartz said at the workshop that indigenous knowledge has sustained generations providing food, medicine, household technologies and processes through leveraging on people skills, experiences and insights that maintain and improve livelihood.   Swartz stated that IKS and its associated systems define who people are and where they come from. In as much as IKS were continuously developed and adapted to the changing environment, the minister pointed out that the systems are the people’s pride and heritage, passed from generation to generation.

He added that despite the critical role of IKS in people’s lives, developmental pressure has adversely affected its status and confined it to small sections of communities resulting in its rejection and disregard.  “Comparison between modern science and IKS portray the latter as inferior. Modern science is inclined towards objective, analytical reductionist and quantitative methods, academic and literate transmission. On the contrary, IKS has a more intuitive and holistic view inclined towards subjective and qualitative methodologies,” he said.  He said the sad reality is that often trying to analyse and validate IKS using scientific criteria risks distorting such systems in the process. “The issue of benefit sharing and intellectual property protection of traditional knowledge is also a challenge since no one can claim its ownership,” he said. 

Swartz said African indigenous knowledge principles and values have suffered because of modernity, introduction of western style education, world religions, and modern infrastructure and communication facilities.