Gaborone — In a bid to promote Botswana's indigenous knowledge, local organisations have taken strides toward boosting innovations and ending expropriation of indigenous knowledge without adequate compensation.
This developments advance priority five of the Reset Agenda which put citizen economic inclusion at the centre of economic development initiatives, as endorsed by President Dr Mokgweeti Masisi.
Speaking in an interview on Monday, brand and communications manager at Botswana Digital & Innovation Hub (BDIH), Ms Kemiso Ben said government through the Ministry of Communications, Knowledge and Technology in partnership with BDIH had availed a fund for boosting innovations in the space of indigenous knowledge.
She said an initiative dubbed Botswana Innovation Fund was put forward to support knowledge-based economy through boosting innovations emanating from indigenous knowledge.
She said Botswana had a wealth of indigenous knowledge entrenched in its people, borne from cultural practices passed from generation to generation across various ethnic groups such as the Basarwa, Bakalanga, Bakgatla, Batlokwa.
Ms Ben reiterated that for many years, products found in Botswana's natural environment and ecosystems had been exploited with little or no returns being shared with those belonging to the host communities.
She said unfortunately some of these had been researched, packaged, and sold for commercial gain, with no returns to host villages.
Ms Ben said there were some products based on local indigenous knowledge that now had designated Intellectual Property (IP) rights residing in foreign countries and organisations.
To promote Botswana's indigenous knowledge, she said Botswana Innovation Fund called on innovators or communities with interest to develop indigenous knowledge based products and services to make their submissions through the call.
"The ultimate and desired outcome from this call was the introduction of indigenous knowledge based products and services into key markets whilst ensuring that there was benefit-sharing with the local communities from where this knowledge stems," she said.
Ms Ben said the call focused on grass-root innovations driven by communities, innovators and/or social enterprises, saying that they would be supported through a co-creation approach with a focus on addressing pressing community challenges.
She said co-creation referred to a product or service design process in which input from consumers played a central role from beginning to end. "Out of this process, we expect to see the innovations to scale and realise commercial and/or social value with recognition apportioned to the knowledge holder's inputs," she said.
Further, she said this call addressed food, nutrition, cosmetics, and traditional supplements, citing that the focus shall be on protecting (IP), producing the product and facilitating the commercial landing of the indigenous knowledge based innovations.
Ms Ben said BDIH hosted traditional knowledge dialogue discussing its different aspects and already three dialogues had been delivered to date, included the importance of medicinal plant botanic garden to traditional knowledge holders or healers.
Beyond this, she said the discussions focused on grassroots innovation and their integration with mainstream science technology and innovation and the reluctance of developed countries to protect traditional knowledge.
Ms Ben reiterated that all outcomes from these discussions would eventually aid government to cultivate targeted interventions to building a knowledge-based economy from wealth of knowledge entrenched across various communities.
Botswana Community Based Organization Network (BOCOBONET), secretary Dr Kebadire Mogotsi said the network was made up of 165 community-based organisations (CBOs) from 300 villages across Botswana.
Dr Mogotsi said they were involved in assisting rural communities to increase the availability and equitable distribution of basic life sustaining goods and services through intelligent audit of natural, human and other capacity resources by training on broad base life skills opportunities.
She said they served as Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS) centre and their programmes targeted community natural resources management and agriculture, education and enterprise development, rural governance, social welfare as well as research and development.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
She said their objectives focused on production, processing, and marketing of wild and cultivated medicinal, aromatic and edible plants, adding that they provided support and training of communities on production of medicinal, aromatic and edible plants.
Since their existence, Dr Mogotsi said they had linked indigenous plant species conversation to science and policy for improved community livelihoods, climate change adaptation and resilience.
Dr Mogotsi said through their engagement with communities and targeted stakeholders they hoped to end exploitation of collectors who got robbed of their indigenous plants for less payout.
She said a case in point was Jwaneng Mabutsane collectors who earned their living through harvesting Sengaparile for a relatively low price, while procuring companies made a killing from the plant.
Dr Mogotsi reiterated that access benefit-sharing as enshrined in the Nagoya Protocol had to come to play in communities and end the narrative that collectors were price takers.
BOPA
