UNLOCKING ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

IN THE SOUTH THROUGH LOCAL CONTENT

A proposal from the G8 Dotforce

      Sumitra – Veeramapattinam

“Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man whom you have seen,

and ask yourself, if the steps you contemplate are going to be of any use to him.

Will it restore to him control over his own life and destiny?”    M.K.Gandhi

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The G8 DOTforce process identified local content as a keystone in any bridge across the digital divide. Were the other parts of the bridge built without appropriate local content, users could arrive at community access points only to find little of relevance to their lives, almost nothing in their own language and few ways to use this new technology to increase their chance of an improved livelihood. The Genoa Plan of Action therefore called for a “national and international effort to support local content and applications creation” that would in particular:

• “encourage networking of bodies which acquire, adapt and distribute content on a non-commercial basis;
• “encourage governments to provide widely-available free-of-charge access to state-owned information and local content, except where it is private or classified; and
• “encourage commercial publishers to explore possible business models to enhance greater accessibility for poor people to relevant content.”

The consultation process began under the chairmanship of OneWorld International (the civil society Dotforce delegate from the UK) with support from DFID. Workshops and open meetings were held in London, Dar es Salaam and Chennai with key participation by the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation (MSSRF), Accenture, the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), IDRC, The Berkman Center of Harvard Law School and many others. Discussions were enriched by linked working groups on local content set up by the UN ICT Task Force and the World Economic Forum.

IICD undertook an extensive survey of existing initiatives in local content creation and offers detailed analysis of the lessons to be learned. They concluded that one size does not fit all and that to energise local content creation and sharing, different initiatives and approaches need to be tried and supported in different sectors and environments. IICD recommends focusing on stimulating local content creation and the process of versioning eContent for local and global markets. They stress the importance of language and IPR issues, and the need to strengthen the local skills base in order to maximize the value of local content.

 
CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY …………………………………………………………..    2

INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………    6

PART I :  THE CHALLENGE

   Chapter 1 - Collecting and Propagating Local Development Content ……………..    8

   Chapter 2 - Insights from Existing Initiatives ……………………………………….  13

PART II : BUILDING ON THE BEST

   Chapter 3 - Implications and Opportunities …………………………………….….... 29

   Chapter 4 - Concept Development with India for the World …………………….….. 37  

PART III : THE OPEN KNOWLEDGE NETWORK MODEL

   Chapter 5 - Social and Organisational ……………………………………………… 63

   Chapter 6 – Technology ……………………………………………………………..  70 

   Chapter 7 - Business Model …………………………………………………………. 81

   Chapter 8 – Legal  ………………………………………………………………….. 100

   Chapter 9 - Potential Impact ………………………………………………………. 110

   Chapter 10 - Taking OKN to Scale …………………………………………………  114

CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………  117

 
INTRODUCTION

The G8 Dotforce process identified local content and applications as one of the necessary conditions for its overall plan of action to bridge the digital divide. With the other links in the chain achieved but without local content, users could be arriving at community access points only to find little of relevance to their lives, almost nothing in their own language and few ways to use the new technology to improve their household income. The Genoa Plan of Action therefore called for a “national and international effort to support local content and applications creation” that would:

• “encourage networking of bodies which acquire, adapt and distribute content on a non-commercial basis;
• “encourage governments to provide widely-available free-of-charge access to state-owned information and local content, except where it is private or classified;
• “encourage commercial publishers to explore possible business models to enhance greater accessibility for poor people to relevant content;
• “encourage the software community, including the open source and commercial software communities, to develop applications relevant to developing countries;
• “support participation by local stakeholders in setting technical standards for incorporating local languages in ICT applications.”

This report takes up these challenges on local content, while other groups have addressed related topics of open source software and the need of some countries for new standards in digital scripts and character sets.

Within our topic of local content there are two approaches that need to be balanced. To take the example of sustainable agriculture: on the one hand, more information for poor farmers can help them increase yields, protect against bad times and so alleviate their poverty directly. To this end the relevant information should be as widely and freely available as possible, to maximise the benefit to as many farmers as possible without adding to their costs. On the other hand, a market for agricultural information could be created, by which farmers and communities with local expertise could make money both locally and regionally by selling it. This local knowledge could include high-value products like medicinal plants. In this case the information should not be freely disseminated, but intellectual property rights in the local knowledge should be maintained in order to provide revenue for the farmers producing it.

Both approaches help to reduce poverty in different ways and both are explored in this report. Indeed they are closely tied together, since poor people are unlikely to participate in any new approach unless they see the opportunity for economic advance. And unless access points and regional hubs find content services catalytic to growing their businesses, they will have not have sufficient incentives to link together in the ways proposed in this report  Most directly, this report explores the option of using payments to ‘buy-out’ copyrights, providing a source of revenue that could incentivise and reward the most useful content that is created locally.

The new information and communications technologies (ICTs) can enable not just a million different kinds of trade, but also a whole new culture of openness, customer responsiveness and citizen participation. Global ICTs have expanded business opportunities, generated new products, pioneered new markets, and brought increasing social, political and economic benefit to many people. They can enable telemedicine, distance learning, and improved communication of crucial information such as weather forecasts and market prices, as well as whole new dimensions of economic opportunity.

Yet the reality is that these new opportunities are not yet shared widely.  Current eCommerce revenues reflect activity by a tiny proportion of the world's population. This should not surprise us since the digital divide reflects other socio-economic divides, so it should not surprise us. There are equally stark offline divisions between more and less developed countries, and between communities within countries. They can be seen in statistics collected on almost every area of life from income to health, and life expectancy to education. But the digital divide is different in that exclusion from the opportunities of the global electronic economy is exacerbating the other socio-economic divisions. Available evidence shows that, as the pace of the digital revolution has accelerated over the last few years, the digital divide within and between countries has often increased rather than diminished. Those with no connectivity are falling further and further behind. 

This report has been prepared between October 2001 and March 2002 by two groups that have included many Dotforce delegates. The International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) has chaired a group exploring on existing initiatives on local content. They have reported in Part I. OneWorld has chaired a group that has sought to build on this work in order to propose how it could be best scaled up across the developing world. This is focused in the proposal for an Open Knowledge Network (OKN). That report is in Parts II and III.

We are grateful for the advice and support of Keith Yeomans, David Woolnough and their colleagues from the UK Department for International Development, which has commissioned this report. We also wish to acknowledge the ideas and experience contributed by James Moore and Finbarr Livesey of the Open Economies Unit of the Berkman Centre for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; Senthil Kumaran, Rajamohan and their teams at the M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation, Basheerhamad Shadrach of Transparency International, and Beth Bolitho, Hannah Bearndon and many colleagues at OneWorld International.

• The executive summary provides the simplest form of overview.
• Part I gives an overview and analysis of existing local content initiatives.
• For a description of how OKN was developed and tested in the field refer to Part II, chapter 4.
• For a full description of the different aspects of OKN, including key aspects of technology, IPR and business sustainability, refer to Part III.
• Part III chapter 9 contains the proposal for how OKN could be implemented over the next six years.
• The appendices provide extended detail on each aspect of the options discussed.
• A participatory workspace is available at http://www.dgroups.org/groups/okn which also contains further background papers and the opportunity to post comments and suggestions.

 
PART I – THE CHALLENGE

1. Collecting and Propagating Local Development Content

Information is a key catalyst for every aspect of development, as many studies are showing  (Dollar and Kray 2001; Fields 1989). Further economic and field studies have found that developing areas (especially rural areas) by themselves grow under certain conditions: where there is openness and connectivity to the wider world, such as by trade channels (Srinivasan), or, in the case of rural development, by roads connecting rural to urban centres.  By promoting connectivity and the exchange of information, ICTs such as public access points can aid economic growth and development further (Tschang).

It is also generally agreed that sharing knowledge and experience can greatly enhance the opportunities of the poorest. But if information is so valuable to local people everywhere, what are the barriers that are currently preventing poor communities in the South from benefiting? What does the digital divide mean in practice to those who would like to take advantage of the unparalleled opportunities for information access offered by new technologies such as the Internet?

Even in a village that has electricity and phone lines, there are six main barriers that even a literate poor family faces:

1. They would not find much in their local language on the Internet.
2. They would not find much information relevant to their daily lives.
3. They are not usually offered the opportunity to input their own local knowledge.
4. The Web offers them almost no opportunities for local wealth creation
5. They cannot afford the cost of Internet access.
6. And they certainly cannot afford their own computer.

The last point has been addressed in recent years by the development of public access points. These can take many forms throughout the South. The range could be characterised as:

1. Community centres with a range of information services, often funded by governments or international agencies. Typically these offer valuable development-related services, but have proved difficult to sustain.
2. Commercial cybercafes which charge for all services and do not have a particular developmental focus. 
3. Companies, local authorities, schools and NGOs who have computers and some connectivity which they make available to their members and, in some cases, the public.
4. Small phone shops with fixed line, wireless or mobile connections who sell phone time for voice calls and other related services. These typically do not include the Internet, though it should be noted there are increasing numbers of phone shops that are expanding into online services.
5. Individuals with mobile phones who rent them out to members of the local community for a fee.

This report takes all these as a foundation to build on, but makes few assumptions about which of these types of access points are best in the context of different developing countries. It does, however, go some way to identifying what the comparative strengths and weaknesses of each model might be, and suggests ways in which their impact and coverage might be stimulated. The different approaches being proposed here are predicated on working with all of them, providing the public with something they cannot easily get otherwise: access to phones, computers and the Internet.

But access points on their own are not enough. Without new initiatives like the ones being examined here, public access points will not achieve their potential in providing what poor communities need, at prices they can afford, because of the other factors listed above. It is these crucial barriers, which have held back access points and perpetuated the digital divide, that this report seeks to address. They all revolve around the issue of local content.

Reviewing the Knowledge Base

One of the strengths of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as the Internet is the way they can be used by poor and disadvantaged communities to unlock distant expertise, knowledge and markets.

However, this access – usually to ‘foreign’ content with foreign perspectives – is not enough. Easier access to globalised knowledge is fast turning us into ‘consumers’ of distant and potentially irrelevant information. More worrying perhaps, developing countries are already being ‘invaded’ by foreign ideas and values that may undermine or overwhelm local cultural heritage and economic livelihoods.

If we are serious about the use of ICTs as an empowerment tool – so poor people can shape decisions that affect their lives, so they can grasp economic and social opportunities, and so they can deal with misfortunes and disasters, then the consumption of foreign content must be matched (or exceeded) by the expression and communication of local knowledge that is relevant to local situations. To a large extent, this means that ICTs need to be conveyors of locally relevant messages and information. They need to provide opportunities for local people to interact and communicate with each other, expressing their own ideas, knowledge and culture in their own languages.

This is not an easy task. Content does not flow of its own accord; it needs owners or originators with the motivation to create, adapt or exchange it. These people need to have the vision to see a potential demand as well as the creative, technical and people skills to transform an idea into a product that can be disseminated or exchanged. More and more, since few people or organisations have all the necessary capacities, it requires that partnerships and teams are formed. There need to be very strong incentives for all the elements to come together at the right time and place.

Beyond these critical capacity and incentive issues, the competition for ideas and ‘customers’ is intense. It is also growing each day. Even in remote areas, the powers that ‘push’ global or just non-local content are often much stronger than those ‘pushing’ local content. This can be seen in television programming, in advertising, in the spread of global brands, in classrooms using imported curricula and examinations, in the use of foreign languages in schools and universities, in the lowly status of local languages, on the Internet, in research, in the dissemination of ‘reliable’ scientific information, and even in the reliance on foreign technical assistance. With a few exceptions (phones, community radio, or indigenous knowledge systems perhaps), most content and communication ‘channels’ in developing countries help to push ‘external’ content into local communities. Efforts to push local content on to global stages, such as African film, African research publications, ‘Southern voices’ in the media, or the e-trading of crafts still face an uphill struggle.

Even where there is a will or a desire to promote local content, we have little concrete guidance on how best to support it. Should we create more effective ‘push’ mechanisms, increasing and improving the supply of content? Should we focus on the demand side, so that local content is more highly valued? Should be look at the containers in which content is packaged, making them more attractive and accessible? Should different types of content get different treatment?

More generally, it is not even clear what the term ‘local content’ really means. Is it limited to digital ‘eContent’ or are all types of knowledge exchange and media included? Is it about building the local ‘media’ sector so it can compete regionally and internationally, or is it about generating and sharing local ‘public goods’ to help address poverty? The term certainly seems to strike a chord in many sectors and environments – from indigenous knowledge to African cinema; from community radio to commercial television and ‘world music’; from literature, libraries and art to science and publishing; and in e-Governance, e-Business, and e-Learning.

This section repots from a study of ‘local content’ in relation to the wider debate on digital divides and digital opportunities. It draws on 50+ mini case stories as well as the discussions in a workshop held in Tanzania to illustrate the range of experiences in generating and exchanging ‘local content’ for use by the development community. In this section, we report on some of the analysis presenting some conclusions and recommendations. This is followed by a presentation of some of the case stories contributed by people around the world.

Some conclusions

First, a definition of local content is difficult to find. Some people define it as content for people in a certain locality, or content for people speaking a language or from a certain cultural tradition. Others suggest it is content that is relevant to, or consumed by a given society or community. In the media industry, local content refers to the proportion of programming that is not imported. All of these definitions are valid. However, they tend to allow ‘non-local’ content to creep in, making a clear focus on ‘local content’ almost impossible. Hence, instead of seeing local content as content ‘for’ local people, we need to see it as content ‘from’ local people. Thus, local content is the expression of the locally owned and adapted knowledge of a community – where the community is defined by its location, culture, language, or area of interest.

Second, while the importance of ‘local content’ has often been raised in international meetings, concrete initiatives and expertise on this topic are very hard to find. Undoubtedly, there are huge amounts of ‘local content’ in developing countries and millions of people are busy working with it. Nevertheless, documented examples of processes of content generation and exchange are exceedingly scarce.

Third, in the course of this study, contacts were established with people working in almost every development sector and representing public, private and not for profit groups. All readily identified local content or local knowledge and its mobilisation as a key challenge. Similarly, efforts were made to link up with different media traditions. Again, getting good local content emerged as a shared interest and priority quite independent of ongoing ‘digital divide’ discussions. The underlying issues and challenges are a core interest of people in many disciplines and sectors.

Fourth, it is crucial to differentiate between ‘local content’ and local ‘eContent’. Just because little eContent from developing countries is found on the Internet, it is wrong to conclude that there is a ‘local content’ problem. Most local content is invisible to international audiences that are not connected to local offline content channels.

Fifth, while the ICTs and other media are converging and provide many opportunities to strengthen local content creation and exchange, different 'pools' of local content need to be treated very differently. The 'drivers' and motivations in health are not the same as those in agriculture, community development, or community radio. A good understanding of these is necessary before any interventions are formulated.

Sixth, while everyone is impressed by the potentials the new ICTs offer to share and exchange local content, in many cases the ‘new’ technologies to document and exchange content are tape recorders, radio, television, newspapers, or telephones. ICTs and the Internet are not the only channels. Actually, the Internet, and computers generally, are currently rather small parts of the ‘toolkit’ used to create and communicate local content (or eContent).

Seventh, most content initiatives using ICTs tend to ‘push’ external content towards local people. In other words, they mainly provide ‘access’ to other people’s knowledge. With a few exceptions, new technologies are not used to strengthen the ‘push’ of local content from local people. Generally, the balance between ‘push’ and ‘pull’ – or supply and demand – is heavily weighted towards non-local rather than local content.

Recommendations

It is clear that the ‘usual suspects’ need to be in place – an enabling policy environment, accessible infrastructure, and finance. Governments have an especially important role to play – in nurturing and fostering appropriate local content, by providing the correct mix of incentives, and by fostering local languages and cultures. Finally, since little is known about ways to energise local content creation and sharing, different initiatives and approaches need to be tried and supported in different sectors and environments.

What needs to be done?

1. We need to stimulate all kinds of local content expression for local application and use.

2. We need to stimulate eContent creation and communication for local and global use.

3. We need to develop eContent exchange and broadcast systems.

4. We need to strengthen the ‘synthesis and adaptation’ capacities at the interfaces between ‘global’ and ‘local’ content.

These can be achieved by:

• Valuing local content. Many individuals and communities are unaware that their knowledge is valuable and useful – for themselves and for others. At every level therefore, awareness of the value of local content needs to be created and recognition given to local initiatives in this area.

• Motivating local content. Anyone who works with content knows that it does not flow of its own accord. The right incentives are needed to make it flow. Understanding the various motivations of people, communities and organisations is essential so that appropriate incentives and rewards can be put in place. A crucial aspect of this discussion is to guard the rights of the creator of the content so that it will not be exploited by others without due recognition.

• Addressing language issues. Local content, indeed global content, is defined by its linguistic and cultural contexts. Taking local content seriously may force governments to re-think the effects of their language policies on stimulating or dampening certain forms of expression. Regarding hardware and software, local adaptations to cope with local languages and character sets are critical. Without these, the technology will continue to be an obstacle to content creation and communication. In some areas, harmonising the orthography of related languages is a promising way to facilitate cross-communication using written materials.

• Promoting local ownership and participation. The way in which content is created and exchanged is as important as the content itself. We must find ways to empower individuals and communities to take ownership of the content and the process used to express it.

• Making local content visible. As was noted above, most local content is invisible, especially to international audiences with digital connections. Making content visible needs to begin at the local level. Here, electronic public spaces could be set up as platforms where community content is brought together and made more visible. Alongside them, public and media campaigns as well as fairs are effective tools to actively promote and stimulate the creation and communication of local content.

• Building transformation skills. To be able to assimilate and make use of existing global content, local actors and organisations need far more sophisticated analysis, adaptation, translation, and synthesis skills that enable them to blend the foreign and the local to create new forms of local content.

• Engaging in joint action. Finally, the processes of creation and exchange are beyond the capacity of individuals and organisations on their own. At every level, partnerships, collaboration and the strengthening of local associations and professional groups can be a foundation for much more dynamic local content environments.

• Strengthening the local skills base. One of the critical challenges emphasised in the workshop is the development of local capacities. Needs range from technical computer and Internet related skills, through writing and production (audio, textual, video), design, management, partnerships, fund raising, market research, and ways to generate commitment and participation. More generally, entrepreneurship and creativity are key requirements that are often overlooked. Local trainers and expertise must be built up and strengthened to meet these diverse needs.

Following from the argument that work on local content needs to be differentiated and diversified and not limited to work with eContent and the Internet, a series of ‘thematic’ initiatives are proposed.

One such is the Open Knowledge Network, elaborated further in this document. In essence this provides an open development content ‘channel’ to local and community access centres in developing countries. Using an innovative blend of technical solutions and different media, it draws on the content held in local public spaces, facilitating local-to-local knowledge exchange and interfacing local and global knowledge. It will also result in more and more visible local eContent for development.

Alongside the OKN, several other initiatives to effectively support genuine local content are also under development. Capacity and content building in focus, these will support the efforts of local public content spaces, reaching out to content owners through existing traditional media and technologies. The local content resulting from these efforts will become, in time, a knowledge base that the OKN can draw on.

•  
  Insights from Existing Initiatives

From the start of this study, we wanted to gain an appreciation of the diversity of local content initiatives – to understand what content is being created, how, who by, and who for. We sensed that local entrepreneurs and organisations around the world are already contributing to this diversity – experimenting with ICTs, developing local applications, generating local content, working with local languages, and finding creative ways to address local development challenges.

Hence we asked people working with local content to share their ideas and experiences, writing them up as case stories or think pieces. Several are presented below.

• AFRIAFYA: A partnership for health knowledge and communication (Kenya).

By Caroline Nyamai, cnyamai@afriafya.org

The idea for AfriAfya is based on the realization that modern ICTs have done almost nothing for rural communities. In April 2000 therefore, seven agencies got together to establish a partnership to explore how they might harness ICTs for community health in Kenya. The purpose of the partnership is to establish mechanisms to generate, manage and share health knowledge at community level through active institutional networking.

More specifically, this means exploring and developing mechanisms for harnessing community knowledge and experience; exploring innovative models and technologies for information management and communication at the community level; enhancing the capacity of network members in health leadership, knowledge management and communication; developing training modules for health knowledge management and communication; and documenting and sharing experiences with others.

The partner agencies are: the Aga Khan Health Services, Kenya; African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF); CARE Kenya; Christian Health Association of Kenya; The Ministry of Health, Kenya; SatelLife HealthNet Kenya; PLAN International; and World Vision International, Kenya.

For the pilot phase of this project, HIV/AIDS was selected as the pathfinder topic to demonstrate the communication system.  Content is generated from the experience and questions provided by the communities involved. This is augmented by official publications from the MoH, the National AIDS and STDs Control Programme, AfriAfya Partner Agencies, other HIV/AIDS organizations in the country, and from the Internet.

The information is repackaged by the hub and sent to the field centres for use by frontline health workers and change agents, helping them to deal with health problems and questions raised by lay community members.

Questions from the field centres range from simple factual issues (Can one get AIDS from being bitten by the mosquito? How effective is the condom in preventing HIV transmission?) to social issues (How can I deal with the unfaithful drunken husband who will not agree to condom use?), to cultural issues that promote the spread of HIV/AIDS (How can we deal with ‘matanga’ - funeral rites that involve a lot of sexual activity thus contributing to spread), to community experiences gained over time (Is it true that engine oil or specified toothpastes can help to relieve HIV-related skin lesions?).

AfriAfya itself does not have the answers to all of these questions, but it can call on its networks and designated advisers to help formulate answers. AfriAfya sees itself as a 'Staging Post', accessing and receiving information from local and international sources, adapting it and ensuring it is relevant to their local setting, and then disseminating it to the community-based health intervention sites. The quality of the information is an important input into this whole process.  The content generated is owned by all AfriAfya participants, and is free of charge for all to use.

The content is shared through email, printed material, diskettes, CD ROMs, telephone and fax. Group and focus meetings are important tools to ensure a two-way communication process. Plans are under way to share the content through WorldSpace. The Hub running costs and initial equipment purchases were paid by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The partners pay the additional field centre costs.

Launched in early 2001, the project is right at the beginning. So far the project has collected information from the communities that field centres are working in and shared this with other field centres. This was done through a baseline survey on communication methods in use and HIV/AIDS information being communicated to and from the communities. Other information collected was the HIV/AIDS information that the communities have, the information they want, questions that they have in this area and the desired packaging for the information.

Major lessons:

• Networking, collaboration and ongoing partnership between different health organizations and institutions can be successfully developed. At the beginning there were concerns about ‘fraternizing with the opposition’, and ‘big’ partners overshadowing ‘small’ partners, but these have since diminished.
• Building on existing structures is quicker than starting from scratch – working with already established health intervention sites has allowed AfriAfya to jump-start and bypass many of the very time consuming start-up stages.
• It is important to find out what information people want – rather than supply them with what you know. Two-way communication is essential if the information being provided is to remain relevant to the people on the ground. Keeping the ‘right’ information flowing – from the users’ point of view – is a real challenge.
• Despite the plethora of health information on the Internet, very little is directly suitable for dissemination to poor communities as it is. It needs to be repackaged to ensure local suitability and relevance.

• TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE (Nigeria)

By John Dada, fantsuam@kabissa.org

Nigeria has a population of about 120 million, and 70% live in rural communities where there is limited access to health and other information. With little disposable income, and the prohibitive cost of hospital bills and medication, many people in rural communities have turned to traditional medicine. This trend initially looked like a setback, but it also presents an opportunity to work with the health knowledge possessed by local people, especially women, with a view to building on it.

Led by the Fantsuam Foundation, the project works with women in the rural communities to (1) understand various traditional healthcare practices and (2) introduce ‘best practice’ and safer techniques in selected treatments.

The project recognizes the role of traditional medicine, especially in communities where it is the only healthcare available. It also recognizes the often-ignored strategic roles of women as primary caregivers in these communities. The project is entirely driven by the communities and its participatory approach has allayed suspicion of any attempt to undermine traditional medicine or bring it into disrepute. Fantsuam Foundation has previously built up significant credibility with the rural communities through its poverty alleviation programmes. This has made it easier to negotiate access with significant stakeholders in the communities for the project.

The Fantsuam Foundation is a group membership organisation. The members are established women’s groups in rural communities in Kaduna State. Fantsuam has a membership of about 80,000 and provides indirect benefit to over 700,000 people through its microcredit and community learning centre programmes.

The content is a classified description of the common treatments used for common ailments in local communities. These communities have a largely oral tradition with very little information in written form. This project is the first attempt to document their traditional health knowledge and skills. So far information has been categorised in the following areas: Communal hygiene (sewage disposal and drainages), types of fevers, ‘bad back’ (a musculo-skeletal problem experienced by many middle -aged farmers), leprosy, female genital mutilation, dysmenorrhoea, diet-control in diabetes and hypertension, non-sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS through use of unsterilised razors for circumcision and facial tribal marks, and hygienic preparation of traditional recreational drugs (these are stimulants prepared from tree barks).

Common treatments used by traditional healers include: the emollients and local anesthetics of the traditional bone setters, and the use of herbs as an inhalant during labor, to stimulate lactation, and to treat ringworm. In the Kafanhan area where we work, there is no record of collaborations with research departments of the local universities to investigate the biomedical properties of these treatments.

The communities, especially the older members, generate all information in the catalogue. Such knowledge remains the property of the communities. Staff of Fantsuam Foundation, within the context of an on-going microcredit programme, does its collection and collation for the communities.

A Medical Database is under development for each participating community. This was initially conceived as a vital registration database (births and deaths), but it now incorporates a traditional pharmacopoeia specific to that community. The information is stored on CDs and hard disk and is in the custody of the Village Head.

We do not use a ‘pure’ model comprising solely indigenous health information. Invariably, we find there are always elements of western scientific knowledge that can be grafted to an indigenous health practice to make it safer and more efficient.

In addition to the knowledge and information collected from the population, other sources of health information are regularly consulted for information that can be adapted and grafted into the existing body of local knowledge and practices. The health channel of the WorldSpace Radio, Satellife, WHO fact sheets, and numerous discussion lists are accessed through Fantsuam Foundation Nigerian and UK offices, translated into local dialect and shared with the women. 'Where There Is No Doctor' is the most commonly used health reference text. Sections are translated into local dialects and used as required.

In negotiating access for the project, the Fantsuam Foundation gave an assurance that local knowledge will not be disseminated without the approval of the communities. This condition also applied to the knowledge and skills of specific individuals. This was the community’s copyright procedure.

Information sharing is not a problem commonly encountered among the ordinary villagers. There is a willingness to do this with nearby villagers and even with researchers from outside. Much information is common to other rural communities and is usually freely shared among members of the tribe and to outsiders as well. It is the traditional healers who feel threatened by dissemination of their knowledge and skills. Healers are aware of the pool of knowledge that their communities share, and the people still consult them because they are believed to have specialist skills, more advanced knowledge and ability to access supernatural sources of information for various diseases as well as social, political and economic problems. In Nigeria the healers now have an association that acts like a trade union primarily to regulate how information is shared with non-practitioners

Major lessons:

• Start with the knowledge base available within the community and build from there
• Developing local content cannot stand alone - it should be conducted within the context of a wider community health programme to facilitate its sustainability
• It is possible to evolve an information management system that preserves traditional knowledge and practices while making it receptive to new ideas about healthcare.
• Traditional medical knowledge has aspects that can be modified and improved for better healthcare delivery.
• Local content that is largely determined by the host community has a better chance of being adapted, upgraded and improved through additional external information from orthodox medicine.
• Traditional knowledge is amenable to modernization if the effort is one of partnership. Intellectual property rights can be safeguarded while making the knowledge available to all members of the host community
• It is important to have access to regular updates of reliable health information from a variety of sources
• There is a need for local capacity for the translation of externally generated information from sources such as textbooks, newspapers, journals and the Internet into the local dialect.

• COMMUNICATIONS FOR BETTER HEALTH (Ghana)

By Lynda Arthur, hfghana@idng.com

In Ghana, there is an urgent need to improve access to health information. Currently, information is more accessible in urban areas, but is still limited by the high cost of books and journals. Library collections are often outdated, irregular, and incomplete. In rural areas, poverty and lack of telecommunication services make access to important health information extremely difficult, whether print or electronic. This is not something that technology by itself can achieve. Rather, technology and information should be seen as a tool for problem solving, for improving lives, and for achieving better health for more people.

The Communications for Better Health (CBH) programme in Ghana was developed by the Dreyfus Health Foundation (DHF) and is executed by the Health Foundation of Ghana. It aims to improve access to health information for both urban and rural health professionals. It recognizes the ‘last mile’ problem and aims to ensure that needed, relevant health information is distributed widely throughout Ghana using low-tech devices such as newsletters and paper digests. 

The two main content tools are a database of local health information plus a local Ghana Health Digest.

The database of local health information is kept in each country’s information centre (head office) in paper format (and often electronic format also). This information centre is a hub for medical information as people call and visit the centres for local and international health information. The local team and editorial board review the most pertinent information and include it in our health digests to share it with the country’s health professionals, leaders, and community workers. The local database is created by local health professionals and other interested parties, who, working together, select needed information from available international resources, but also help in-country or regional colleagues to bring their experience together and share it with others. Attention is focused on being certain that the information disseminated is both useful and has a practical, measurable impact on various health problems. The programme supports an interactive information centre/process that disseminates international health information as well as relevant local and regional experiences and solutions. 

Local experience is collected from various sources, the most important of which is the parallel Problem Solving for Better Health (PSBH) programme, which is designed to generate solutions to pressing health problems.  These solutions are designed and put into practice by local health professionals, who then have a relevant body of experience to be included in the country’s health information resources.  These resources are made available to all health professionals in the country by the CBH program, which utilizes all available delivery methods to get the information out as widely as possible.

The locally prepared ‘Ghana Health Digest’ is produced containing international health information in the form of abstracts from databases such as MEDLINE and PASCAL. The selection of abstracts takes into consideration local health conditions. The digest also contains relevant articles written by local health specialists, summaries of findings from community health projects, and results of PSBH projects. Other adapted content is presented in the form of personal health experiences, interviews, “Frequently asked Questions,” “Questionnaires and Answers,” and quizzes.

The majority of information used in compiling a digest is from international sources such as Medline, the Internet, encyclopaedias, periodicals, journals, and other publications. Some of the content, however, includes examples of personal stories, interviews, and health articles and this information is compiled from local sources and thus does not need adaptation.

To date, basic health information on topics covered included: typhoid fever, meningococcal disease, water borne diseases, diarrhoea, worm infestation, epilepsy, cardio-vascular diseases, HIV/AIDS, maternal health, infertility, teenage pregnancy, jaundice in infants, drugs, immunizations, CPR, and stress. Health articles from specialists have included: An Introduction to Sexually Transmitted Diseases, A Guide to Malaria Prevention and Control, Buruli Ulcers, Sexual Disorders, G-6-DP Deficiency, Relationship Between Circumcision and HIV, Depression Menopause, Dementia, and Anaemia.

All content is collected, organized, and adapted by HFG staff, and is then reviewed and edited by the local editorial board which is composed of faculty from the University of Ghana Medical School and Ghanaian doctors. The target audience is health professionals throughout the 10 regions of Ghana as well as the general public. 2500 copies of the digest are distributed quarterly to health professionals (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and medical students) via hospitals, clinics, medical libraries and the District Health Management Teams of the Ministry of Health. Also targeted are parliamentarians, teachers, businessmen, government employees, and community leaders.

Alongside the database and the digest, the public is also targeted through the mass media (television and newspaper). Highlights from the digest are read bi-weekly on the “National Morning Breakfast Show” on Ghana Television (GTV) and the Daily Graphic Newspaper has featured several articles for their weekly health column. The Health Foundation of Ghana is also in negotiation with Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (radio) to broadcast information from the digest.

Major lessons:

• There is a host of valuable, current medical information on the Internet, but the majority of the developing world does not have access to it and, equally importantly, does not know how to use it to optimal advantage.
• All levels of technology, even no technology, can be used to target relevant health information to the widest possible audience. These include the Internet, satellite transmission, radio, traditional print digests and newsletters, and workshops and formal and informal meetings
• The majority of health information needs to be adapted for local use.

• AFRICAN JOURNALS ONLINE (Africa)

By Diana Rosenberg, drosenberg@inasp.info

African journals publishers have not been able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Internet, because of weak technological infrastructures and costs. Many have ceased publication altogether. African research has suffered, because the means to publish research results are lacking and the results on which to develop further research are not disseminated.

The aim of this project is to encourage African scholars to participate actively in information creation, sharing and dissemination, by providing online access, through one interface, to the tables of contents (TOCs) and abstracts of journals currently published in Africa, backed by a document delivery service.

The project is currently managed and hosted by the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP). Each journal is a member and beneficiary of the service.

Normally, each journal generates TOCs and abstracts and sends these to INASP, as each issue is published. INASP maintains the website and adds other value-added features, like the search feature, links to full text (where available), instructions to authors and document delivery options. Each journal retains copyright of its contents. Funding to maintain the service is raised by INASP from a number of donor agencies.

The contents of over 70 journals, all currently published in Africa, are now available on the website: 9 in agricultural sciences, 20 in science and technology, 13 in health and 29 in social sciences.

The use made of the site shows that it is now a leading source for those wanting access to information and research on Africa. African journals now have a much greater visibility. Users of the service, on the whole, are academics and researchers. A first time user registers and in the first 16 months over 2,500 registered. About 1,300 of these are from North America and Europe and 900 from Africa. Many of those from the West are also Africans. Once registered, the user can access the TOCs and abstracts of journals (by browsing through titles or by searching by key word) and link to full text or request document delivery. Take up of the document delivery option has been, to date, minimal. Access to the TOCs and abstracts is free. A charge is made for document delivery.

An offshoot of AJOL is a project facilitating the full text publication of a number of African journals on the Internet.

The service relies on donor funds for its continuation. African journals have not as yet benefited financially from being featured on AJOL, either through increased numbers of subscriptions or paid-for articles.

Major lessons:

• The project illustrates how the Internet can be used to share, locally, nationally and internationally, local content that has already been created.
• Absolutely necessary is a body committed to the establishment and management of the centralized sharing mechanism.
• To move to self-sustainability, journal publishers will have to see financial benefits so that they can pay for inclusion. The other alternative is for institutions like libraries to take out a subscription to the service. However there is no indication that the information contained in African published journals is, at the moment, vital to them.
• African journals are currently not strong. Therefore it will take a long time before they themselves are able to pay for a service like AJOL. Also many do not have the technical knowledge to upload their own TOCs and abstracts or to publish electronic full text.
• The AJOL model is cheap to maintain once it has been established.

• QWA-QWA COMMUNITY RADIO (South Africa)

By Chris Armstrong, carmstrong@icon.co.za

Qwa-Qwa Radio is a community radio station licensed under the broadcasting legislation and regulations of South Africa.  South Africa’s legislation and regulations allow for licensing of three types of radio broadcasters – public, commercial and community. Community radio stations have a small broadcast ‘footprint’.

To be licensed as a community radio station, the station must be: initiated by people living within the broadcast footprint; supported by the main community groups in the broadcast footprint; non-profit; owned by the community through a community Board of Trustees elected at least every two years by the community members at an Annual General Meeting; and run according to a programme schedule developed with community input.

Qwa-Qwa Radio was awarded a 4-year community radio licence in April 1999. The station went on air on 11 February 2000. It broadcasts 24 hours a day on 100.3 FM. The station’s licence allows it to broadcast to a ‘footprint’ that is 70 kilometres in radius, but due to faulty transmitter installation the radius is currently only about 30 km. The current radius only allows the station to cover the formal Qwa-Qwa territory (about 600 square kilometres) without hitting the outlying villages, farms and towns.

About 60-70 percent of the station’s programming is in Sotho (Sesotho), the language spoken by the Sotho people, who make up the vast majority of the station’s listeners. The rest is in English, which most of the listeners can comprehend. The station has committed itself, in its licence, to broadcasting 60% talk and 40% music. And regulations dictate that 20 percent of its music content must be local South African.

The station’s main competition is Lesedi FM, the Sotho-language national station of the public broadcaster, the South African Public Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). Most listeners in the Qwa-Qwa area listen to both Lesedi FM and Qwa-Qwa Radio. Qwa-Qwa Radio’s listenership has grown from 36,000 in April 2000 to 114,000 in June 2001 (the time of the last survey). This audience figure is one of the highest among community radio stations in South Africa.

The territory known as Qwa-Qwa is a mountainous, densely populated area. Its population is mostly peri-urban (in Phuthadijhaba) and rural (gathered around villages). There are high levels of unemployment and poverty among the population of about 1 million people. One study said that 88 percent of the people of Qwa-Qwa are living below the poverty line. Unemployment all over the country is estimated to be at about 45 percent.

The purpose of the radio station is to empower the people in the listening area to participate in the sustainable development of the community. This empowerment is to be achieved by: generating empowering content (mostly local) in collaboration with community members and community groups; disseminating content to the listeners through analogue radio broadcasting; and collecting feedback/inputs on content from the community in order to increase the relevance and effectiveness of the content. The station also entertains with its programming – through music programming, games, contests, storytelling, jokes, dedications.

The station’s slogan, in Sesotho, is ‘Lentswe la hao,’ meaning ‘Your Voice.’ Its stated mission is to “promote local culture through relevant programmes in tradition, local talent in music, praise and education.” The mission statement also puts emphasis on “news at a local level, that will provide a sense of belonging, identity and pride among members of the community, encouraging gender sensitivity and challenging all stereotypes and combating all forms of abuse, ultimately supporting the spirit of co-existence and reconciliation.”

The community is generating the content. The station managers, presenters, guests and information contributors are all members of the community.

The most dynamic content generation is spontaneous, when people come directly, unannounced, to the station. Thus groups of workers may arrive at the station to discuss problems like job layoffs that were about to occur. Their concerns are then put on the air.

Many of the programme producer-presenters at both stations are connected to, or work for, local civil society organisations. For instance, the producer-presenter of gender programming at Qwa-Qwa works for a local women’s NGO. The producer-presenter of the Qwa-Qwa HIV/AIDS slot works for the local Tshwaranang AIDS Centre, which offers counseling and information.

Other content, mostly pre-packaged nationally-focused educational/public awareness content, is sent to the station on CD by national radio production houses - on topics such as democracy, labour, HIV-AIDS, local government, human rights, and racism/xenophobia. While this is not local content, the stations usually do their own extra programming on the topic to localise the issues. Often the programmes are in English, but sometimes translated versions in the most widely spoken languages - Zulu, Sotho, Xhosa – are provided. The items are usually current affairs features or dramas, of between 5 and 15 minutes in length.

The station also works with the four other community stations in the Free State Province to produce pre-recorded programmes on gender, disability, women, children, crime prevention and HIV/AIDS. These productions, sponsored by the national Department of Communications (DoC) are mostly in Sotho. The station producers gather at one of the 5 stations’ studios to produce the items, and then stations further localise the content at the time of broadcast with guests/interviews drawn from their respective areas.

The station does live public awareness talk show/call-in programmes, sponsored by government departments and agencies. The national Education Department has sponsored programmes on school governing bodies, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has sponsored voter education programmes, and donors sponsor programming on health, children, democracy, and labour.

Almost all of the content is owned the community, because the station is community-owned and governed by a community-elected Board of Trustees. The only content not owned by the stations is some of the pre-recorded material provided by production houses.

The members of the community are also doing the sharing. They contribute content to the station, and they work at the station to facilitate the redistribution of the content. The members of the community guide the programme schedule and they give feedback on the programmes through calling in during a show, writing a letter, visiting the station, and, as is often the case, approaching a presenter or a member of station staff in the street. All community members with access to a radio (the vast majority of people in Qwa-Qwa) are accessing the content – and they are the same people who are creating it. The community is “speaking to itself.”

Overall, the project is highly successful as a gatherer and sharer of local content. The station has a high degree of “content sustainability.” The station’s gathering and sharing of local content have become part of the structure of the community that owns the station. The station and its community are interdependent.

Major lessons:

• The importance of local language: The station predominantly uses the indigenous, vernacular language spoken by the people it serves.
• The importance of non-discriminatory, non-elitist communication systems: This case study reaffirms the importance of radio as a communications medium that is inexpensive to consume and requires no reading or writing skills to consume.
• The importance of an accessible medium for people wanting to generate content: The radio station provides people with disabilities, and other traditionally marginalized groups such as women and the elderly, and people without high levels of formal education, with the power to create and share content through a powerful communications platform.
• The importance of commitment to the improvement of one’s society: The volunteers who work at the radio station do not do what they do for financial gain. They work to create social gain. They are both the service providers and the “clients.” Each success they achieve improves life in the community they inhabit. The volunteers at this station are real implementers of change. The community, which owns, governs and runs the station, must be allowed to continue to put social responsibility ahead of revenue generation in its effort to provide an essential public service.

• COMMUNITY DOCUMENTATION OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE (Kenya)

By Yasuyuki Morimoto and Patrick Maundu, y.morimoto@cgiar.org

To the Kamba people of Kitui District in Kenya, the bottle gourd is known locally as ‘Kitete.’ It is a key item found in virtually every aspect of their traditional and cultural life. In spite of the rich local knowledge and the biological variations in the Kitete, very little information on this gourd has been documented and preserved as most of this information had been passed on verbally. Because much of this knowledge has been available only to the local communities, knowledge and the diversity of this gourd is threatened. Loss of the knowledge will have a far-reaching impact on the community.

The success of any information documentation and technology transfer depends on opportunities such as traditional meetings in town or at open market places and at social gatherings where local people meet to share and transfer traditional or cultural knowledge. The Kamba people generally like telling stories or exchanging and sharing local news at social gatherings as communication by means of the telephone, fax machine, e-mail and the Internet is expensive or even inaccessible. So, through stories, rumour, songs, riddles, poems, myths, superstitious believes, religion and even practical demonstrations, indigenous knowledge is transferred. However, with modern ICT techniques, much of this invaluable traditional knowledge can be saved, documented, and improved upon, not only for the present communities in the country but also for the future generations.

To prevent further loss of such invaluable knowledge, a two-year project to conserve the diversity of Kitete and its associated indigenous knowledge was launched in March 2001. Implemented by the Kyanika Adult Women Group (KAWG), key external partners are the Kenya Resource Center for Indigenous Knowledge (KENRIK), the Kenya Society of Ethno-ecology and the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI). With the guidance of these partners, the women’s group collected knowledge and genetic material of Kitete in their districts. Group members shared knowledge amongst them but were trained by community experts so that they, in turn, could train other community groups to carry out the project work in their respective areas.

The content being generated in the Kyanika village includes written documents, tapes, videos, photographs, a resource center (where diversity and use information are stored) and experience gained by members through project activities. Contents for the above documentation are provided and owned by the KAWG and partners with the assistance of the KAWG and local community compiled the computer-edited materials.

KAWG identified and invited resource persons to train the group members at a 6 day-seminar. KAWG also organized four seminars in different communities in Kitui. Kitete knowledge, experience and collections are subsequently shared with other people. The materials displayed at the resource center were used for further training in the Kyanika village. Story telling by elders, sharing myths, songs, dances, riddles, poems, drama, listening to taped materials, photographs, watching videos, reading written reports (in the local Kikamba language), materials displayed at seed/fruit fairs and IK competitions were forms of communications employed in the process of transferring and conserving the knowledge. Knowledge shared among the KAWG members could be accessed by other community members and participants in the project activities.

A documentation centre with recorded materials, documents, and a collection of Kitete samples and seeds has been established for the use of the local communities and outsiders. The KAWG draft training materials using documented information and techniques acquired during the project activities were used at national and international workshops and presentations made by the KAWG members. As a follow-up activity, the centre will publish training materials and collect and document information for use in educating the community members and school children. To sustain the activity, the group has started income generating content-based activities such as selling decorated or carved Kitetes, making and selling Kitete ornaments, promoting the sale of T-shirts on the Kitete subject, selling rare and popular types of seeds and fruits to the visitors of KAWG.

Major lessons:

• Additional incentives are needed to keep the group active and therefore maintain the biodiversity of Kitete. (e.g. more opportunities to sell their decorated Kitete and support in the form of equipment for collecting data)
• Mass communication media like the radio, TV, newspapers and visits by people from afar also helped to encourage and motivate the group.
• Seed fairs were an effective method for sharing the biological diversity and its related information.
• IK competitions were good for sharing, on a broader base, the traditional techniques and information which could sometimes be protected as secrets. Such competitions not only encourage the real knowledgeable people to bring forth their traditional know-how and workmanship but they also help to identify important resourceful artisans in the community from whom the young generation could relate and learn in the African traditional way.
• From local community meetings and functions like agricultural shows, church ceremonies, market day gatherings, festivals and other relevant events in the community the local people can gather and pass information especially in IK and genetic resources. Seed fairs or competitions on the size of the pumpkins will be something interesting and effective to keep the subject alive and the programme cost effective and sustainable. Other cultural events include harvest festivals and seed planting ceremonies. These types of traditional events are still common in Asia but many are already lost due to westernization and religious revolution during the colonial era in Africa.
• ICT tools like the tape recorder can easily facilitate the transfer of oral traditions and traditional knowledge of plants and their uses.
• IK information sharing is possible as long as the subjects we are addressing are those that the communities feel comfortable sharing with others. Sharing information however becomes difficult when we touch on realms where a few individuals have, or the community has given, a mandate and therefore claim supremacy or sole rights. This is aggravated further if there is an economic value at stake, a good case being the use of medicinal plants.

• DOCUMENTING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE IN SARAWAK (Malaysia)

By Eileen Yen Ee Lee, eileen@sbc.org.my

Located in one of the twelve mega centers of biological diversity, Sarawak is concerned that its rich biodiversity is conserved and utilized in a sustainable manner to benefit not only the State of Sarawak but also the whole of Malaysia and the rest of the world.  In 1998, the government established the Sarawak Biodiversity Centre (SBC) as the focal point and, in time, to become a world class resource centre in Sarawak for biodiversity inventory, monitoring, research, education, utilization, management and conservation of her biodiversity. Among other things, the SBC assists the State to identify priorities for research on biodiversity and the study of the biodiversity of Sarawak in order to enhance understanding, conservation and sustainable utilization of biodiversity, including its traditional use among the local communities.

In Sarawak, there are over 36 ethnic communities.  Each has inherited rich arrays of traditional knowledge from their ancestors. There is a distinct trend to find one ethnic group occupying an isolated village, town or district for generations and they therefore know their land and are familiar with their environment.  In short, they have learned how to grow food crops and survive under difficult environmental conditions. They know what varieties of crops to plant, when to sow and weed, which plants are poisonous and which can be used for food or medicine, how to cure diseases and how to maintain their environment in a state of equilibrium.

In some communities however, the survival of this knowledge is threatened. Focusing on the sugar palm therefore, SBC is implementing a project that seeks to empower local communities to maintain, document and share their IK systems on plant resources that are traditionally used within the community. At the same time, it will promote IK documentation and sharing in local communities using ICT, thereby enabling the development of Community Knowledge Centres to ensure transmission of the knowledge to the young generation and enable the use of the knowledge in sustainable management of biodiversity and development of agriculture and economy within the communities.

This project’s use of audio and video recorder in IK documentation is helpful in capturing the knowledge of the community elders to further the younger generations’ understanding of the sugar palm as an essential cash crop in the Bidayuh culture.

Plants, fruits and seeds of all known varieties of the sugar palm in the community are being documented and conserved by and for the community. Audio and video recordings of the community’s knowledge on the utilization of the sugar palm are made in the community’s own language and deposited in the ‘community knowledge centre.’ With their audio and video recordings, the farmers are able to produce ‘papers’ that can be registered in the local traditional knowledge/indigenous knowledge register. Once registered, this knowledge can be re-used by the community as well as by research scientists.  Any citation made on such “papers” can be traced back to the knowledge holders for benefit sharing and public acknowledgement. The TK/IK Register is a formal system in the state that will give legal protection to any documents that are invested with SBC. Access by scientists is governed by rules set by SBC who represents the government of the Sarawak state.

The project has increased public awareness of biodiversity conservation and economic values in conserving diversity. With such an awareness, communities are better equipped to understand and realize that the traditional knowledge and technology they can share with scientists and other communities are not only means of preserving the biodiversity of their land but also their lives and economy thus alleviating poverty.

Community Knowledge Centres, with their audio and video recordings, are helping to ensure the survival of local languages and especially specific local terms for specific plants.

Major Lessons:

• IK related community biodiversity management can be easily documented by the community with the use of ICT tools such as audio and video tape recorders and allowing documentation in the community’s own language for immediate use within the community. ICT provides a means to store the knowledge for communities to trace back and to build upon.
• The TK/IK register helps to protect the rights of the local content owners.

• LI-BIRD Ko Chautari – Nepal participatory rural radio (Nepal)

By Krishna Prasad Baral and Dr Anil Subedi, kblibird@cnet.wlink.com.np

Conservation of biodiversity can succeed only if people understand the biodiversity distribution and value, and see how these could benefit them in their own lives and aspirations. Public awareness campaigns in Nepal have tried various ways to reach local communities to stimulate greater efforts in this area. Initially, formal meetings, orientation training, personal contacts with key people were organized and some project information in the form of flyers in the community’s vernacular language were made available to a wider audience. Despite this, it was realized that the intended messages were not reaching important members of farming communities, particularly the women folks and young children.

In October 2001 therefore, a local NGO - LI-BIRD - started a local radio programme called ‘LI-BIRD Ko Chautari.’ Literally, the word ‘Chautari’ means ‘a resting-place under the shade of a tree’ – usually the Ficus religiosa bengalensis where social, cultural and religious information of value was discussed and exchanged. Traditionally, it is an important place for sharing information. ‘LI-BIRD Ko Chautari’ is focusing on biodiversity related issues to complement the government’s agricultural radio programmes.

This participatory rural radio programme is operating in collaboration with the Annapurna FM Radio Station. It uses materials generated by participatory methods of collecting local knowledge and practices generated from farming communities and their experiences. Technologies developed by the farming community together with the research outputs of university and research stations are also used.

It is part of a wider package of efforts to increase local awareness on the importance of agro biodiversity such as Diversity Fairs, Gramin Kabita Yatra (Rural Poetry Journey), Lokgeet Pratiyogita (Folk song Competition), Gramin Sadak Natak (Rural roadside drama), Community Biodiversity Register, and the Diversity Block. The target groups for these public awareness tools are basically the rural communities. The approaches are deeply rooted in local culture and customs but tools have been modified to suit the purpose of biodiversity conservation.

As indicated above, the methods and approaches developed in the project activities are shared through various means at local, national and international levels. Traditionally local contents are shared during festivals, rituals and dances. However, these materials are also shared through publications, posters, video films and TV programmes. Rural radio “LIBIRD Ko Chautari” is now an additional established concept used to transfer knowledge through the use of the FM radio technologies.

Keeping the objectives of the programme in view, it is hoped that participatory and interactive programmes aired can bring grass root level issues to the attention of the stakeholders. The farming communities are encouraged to provide suggestions and feed backs. Prizes for the best questions and suggestions and the correct answers given for the week have also been introduced to create interest and motivation among the young listeners. Winners are awarded portable FM radio each week – a good way to encourage people to make use of this communication device.

The LI-BIRD Ko Chautari rural radio programme started only on 17th October 2001. Nineteen episodes have been successfully completed and aired. It is too early to assess the impact of the programme but the following results have been achieved:

Increased public awareness of biodiversity issues in the Pokhara valley; Increased direct sharing of new findings and information with target communities; Common forum used for panel discussions between the farming community and high level policy makers; Integrating biodiversity education with traditional culture and literature; Bringing together various stakeholders into common communication links; Documentation of value of local biodiversity; and feed back to local level conservation and development agencies.

Major lessons:

• Biodiversity conservation ideas are more likely to be accepted in rural communities if they are shared via their traditional ways of communication such as through poems, drama, songs and dances, and if immediate knowledge is provided for the community’s tangible needs. Sad to say though, such traditional ways of communication is declining and popular technologies like the radio, TV and videos are catching up fast among the young generation. Inculcating awareness of the importance and values of biodiversity and blending popular culture with traditional culture seems to offer a way forward.
• We need to develop local interest and capacity to handle technologies and radio journalism from the community based organizations to the LI-BIRD professionals involved in the activity. Procurement of audio equipment for interviews and live broadcast may be necessary to assist proper human resource development to help conceptualise biodiversity conservation education and awareness and to blend that with local content and methods. In order to make it sustainable, a long term institutional support and linkage must be established.
• A sustainable and popular programme needed to reach the young generation is another challenge to be highlighted. One should develop innovative “crazy” ideas to suit the purpose and occasion.
• Local institutions, interest, content and culture should be the priority areas to be replicated in new areas. The network of such a rural radio programme is a good way to share experiences and ideas for the improvement of the local biodiversity and economy of the communities as well as the community’s livelihood.

• DOCUMENTING TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE IN YUNNAN (China)

By Dai Luyuan, daily@public.km.yn.cn

This case story presents three activities: Traditional knowledge (TK) documentation and exchange to alleviate poverty in Lancang county; Using TK to develop traditional products to increase farmers’ income in Mojiang county; and developing indigenous biodiversity educational modules in local language as part of an E-kit to rescue the endangered minor language of Bai.

The Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences (YAAS), in partnership with the Yunnan Farmers’ Specialist and Technician Association (YFSTA) and IPGRI has assisted farmers to document their traditional knowledge in agriculture in their own language. The main purpose is to help these farmers apply their knowledge on local biodiversity and become economically autonomous within their communities. Simple ICT tools such as the tape recorder are useful for the documentation of their knowledge. The greater volume of knowledge made available through exchange has encouraged farmers to discover, develop and improve the market value of their local produce.

The agricultural research policies of the current government in the Peoples’ Republic of China have been and continue to be so exclusively market-oriented that it would be easy to imagine that over the years, agricultural traditions have been dropped in favour of more economically viable farming practices and where traditional farming knowledge would have gradually disappeared. However, the deep-rooted sense of tradition instilled in farmers has kept TK alive. The role of YAAS was to assist local farmers to discover the value of new traditional products and to train them to modify their products and establish a marketing centre.

The YFSTA has some 100,000 members. Due to the vast terrain to be covered and the high cost is sending out information to its members, Yunnan Radio Station joined the project to help disseminate the documented knowledge and to promote the new products that were developed. To address the knowledge sharing with the scientific community, abstracts of tapes were published in the YAAS Science and Technical Journal to enable the knowledge to be cited. The IK Journal is a useful concept for documenting TK in the farmers’ own language and making it citable so that knowledge used can be traced in the event that claims are made.

There are many radio programmes in the Yunnan province and in many counties in the province. Radio programmes reach even remote communities. The introduction of the tape recorders in TK documentation is useful in capturing the knowledge of the community elders for use in the Bai school set up to train the local Bai youth in their endangered language, crafts of the community and their appreciation of TK. ICT has an important role to play in enhancing the learning process with local content. Such a project will enable the local Education Bureau to extend the indigenous experiences and knowledge to other nationalities as it gives academic recognition to the school and the graduates.

Special programs about the value of TK and its role in alleviating poverty are generated by the contribution of local farmers with the help of scientists. The radio station produces these programmes in order to promote communication between communities as well as farmers. Farmers can use the programme to better understand the relationship between their TK and modern knowledge, as well as its market potential.

Farmers in the local community share traditional cultivation management, traditional use of processing technologies, and special management knowledge in conservation of genetic resources. With the tape recorder the farmers were able to produce ‘papers’ and the knowledge can be directly re-used by the community as well as produce in IK Journal for sharing with the Scientist. The ability to cite such ‘papers’ ensures the possibility of tracing back the information thus obtained to the knowledge holders for the benefit of