26 Jun 2013

There is need for the establishment of a policy that can regulate all rules of research, specifically all foreign researchers who exploit the local indigenous knowledge systems, Botswana College of Agriculture’s Prof. Daniel Motlhanka has said.

Prof. Motlhanka who was presenting on the status of Botswana’s Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) at the Botswana Innovation Hub’s (BIH) innovation café said, “different forms of existence that we have in our society have their base as Indigenous Knowledge (IK),” he added.

The idea behind the innovation café was to consolidate ideas and find means of providing solutions to the problems experienced by local indigenous knowledge holders, to ensure that they benefitted from their IK without being exploited by foreign researchers.

He said it was important to observe and respect IK dynamics and for government to create a viable and vibrant environment for IKS- as it was embedded within community practices, religion, institutions, relationships and rituals.

Prof. Motlhanka, who is a specialist in biochemistry and natural products science, said Indigenous Knowledge Systems drove agriculture in terms of animal husbandry, crop production and health care in terms of food preparation practices.

He also noted that IKS drive education and training, environmental conservation, natural resource management, conflict resolutions management and political governance.

Botswana Innovation Hub chief executive officer, Mr Alan Boshwaen, said BIH had “adopted the issue of how to move some of the IK that is residing out there into business opportunities and commercial reality, because there is a lot out there that we as Batswana are not benefiting from.”

One of the key issues of how BIH practically intends to do that, Mr Boshwaen said was to look into interesting ways or a program of how to facilitate such technology transfer system, so that the innovation that people already have could be move into them actually owning companies and producing things.”

“We need to have our own unique systems and knowledge as Botswana in order to compete in the global market. Mimicking other countries will not make us unique nor sell our products to the rest of the world, which is why we need to develop our local IK and commercialise it,” he added.

Botswana Innovation Hub director, Dr Budzanani Tacheba, said to be able to advance as a country, it was high time that IK holders were helped and encouraged to use their knowledge to produce unique Botswana products and services that would give the country a competitive advantage in the global market.

“We need to have different processes and mechanisms through which we can protect all the wealth of IK by establishing methods through which we can protect our communities from any form of exploitation, so that our people can benefit from their own knowledge,” he said.

Dr Tacheba also explained that the idea behind the innovation café was to ensure that “we collectively compile and put the information in such a way that it could be relevant to all of us, because we want to be able to move from what we consider as our traditional knowledge and ensure everything is captured in a formalized manner in order to commercialized these IK.”

“We should create a framework where we can be able to uplift these products to reach a level of diversifying our economy and be able to commercialise them in a way that they can reach the global market,” he added.

Local IKS entrepreneur, Mr Kobamo Gaegopolwe said it was disheartening that some people undermined and despised IKS.

He said IK holders should be assisted to acquire intellectual property recognition, so that they could benefit from their own knowledge. END