Learning from Local Communities
How can we learn from healers and farmers?

The IK Program sponsored a seminar on 15 May 2001, bringing together development practitioners from East Africa, scientists from the US National Institutes of Health, George Washington University Hospital, and Bank staff. The focus was on learning from traditional health practices in Africa. The main outcome was an agreement between the participants to work together on validating herbal treatments of HIV/AIDS-related opportunistic infections. This was followed by a press briefing co-sponsored by Africa External Affairs, with our partners from Africa, Monica Opole of the Center for Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Agricultural By-Products (CIKSAP) in Kenya and David Sheinman of the Tanga AIDS Working Group (TAWG) in Tanzania. Attached are articles that appeared in the international media, which provide a good summary of the challenges and opportunities:

AllAfrica.com

Development News

UN Radio

For more details please contact Siddhartha Prakash:Sprakash@worldbank.org, Phone: 202-473-5863.