Medicinal Plants – Ethiopia learns from Sri Lanka

(South-South Cooperation)

Introduction: The Conservation and Sustainable Use of Medicinal Plants Project seeks to initiate support for conservation, management and sustainable utilization of medicinal plants for human and livestock healthcare in Ethiopia. The Project is into its second year of implementation. The project staff visited a similar project on medicinal plants in Sri Lanka that is near completion. This debriefing focuses on lessons learned from the Sri Lankan experience that the Ethiopians plan to integrate into their project. These include the legal protection of IK and benefit sharing mechanisms, documentation of IK practices and exchanges of experiences, institutionalization of traditional medicine, in-situ and ex-situ cultivation of medicinal plants. To promote south-south cooperation, the project team intend to consult IUCN Sri Lanka on the Medicinal Plants Project and the Tropical Botanic Garden Research Institute of India on conservation and benefit sharing mechanisms.

The video can be viewed in its entirety or via shorter clips sorted along the main themes (blue underlined) which emerged during the debriefing. This debriefing was organized by the Knowledge and Learning Group as part of AFTQK’s knowledge sharing and learning services. Dr. Z.M.Nyiira, Director Uganda National Council for Science and Technology and the Bank team conducted the debriefing on September 18th, 2002.

Full Debriefing

1. Introductions (2:04 min)
2. Overview of project seen in Sri Lanka – A number of lessons from the Sri Lankan experience can be transferred to Ethiopia (1:21 min)
3. Relevance of projects to Ethiopia:

a. Setting the groundwork – good foundation on how to implement projects in Ethiopia (43 sec)
b. Need to build awareness – on issues related to conservation and community ownership (1:00 min)
c. Community readiness – to integrate IK into development practices (2:29 min)
d. Custodians of traditional knowledge – healers open to sharing if they are supported (1:47 min)
e. Due respect to IK – needs to be valued by practitioners and policy makers (1:33 min)
f. No documentation – adapt guidelines developed by Sri Lanka (28 sec)
g. Using present day medicinal plants – herbal products could be developed like Sri Lanka (2:15 min)
h. Integrative elements – what can we take home? (12:28 min)

i. Comparing the situation in Sri Lanka Vs. Ethiopia – both have IK and ancient languages; affected by civil wars (1:44 min)

ii. Documented IK in Arabic script (1:24 min)

iii. IK is institutionalized in Sri Lanka (22 sec)

iv. Ethiopia is a much larger – and more diverse country (2:01 min)

v. Institutional structures are similar (40 sec)

vi. Custodian leaders – help organize communities for conservation (3:35 min)

vii. Manufacturing and marketing – should be integrated with community based activities (1:01 min)

i. Institutionalizing IK

i. Institutionalizing IK – through the support of government and guidelines for practitioners (2:52 min)

ii. Taking projects to the community – ‘putting it in their hands to implement it…’ (1:07 min)

iii. Traditional Healers / Practitioners Association – need for consensus and coordination (2:29 min)

iv. Lack of collaboration – between Ministry of Health and Traditional Healers Association (57 sec)

v. Implementation challenges – raise traditional medicine to ministerial levels and seek regional institutional arrangements (2:41 min)

4. Leadership from Traditional Practitioners – to manufacture drugs supported by ministry of health (4:25 min)
5. Policies that encourage the use of IK – public / private partnerships (1:59 min)
6. What lessons have been learned and what can Sri Lanka learn from Ethiopia – Ethiopian healers have their own clients; share knowledge from ancient manuscripts (3:16 min)
7. South-South cooperation – on awareness raising and ex-situ – in-situ cultivation (1:35 min)
8. Next steps forward – bring a Sri Lankan delegation to Ethiopia (47 sec)
9. South - South Partnership – invite IUCN – Sri Lanka to help advise on implementation strategies (2:13 min)
10. Validation aspect (1:47 min)
11. Involving all parties – aids in planning and implementation for more successful projects (2:39 min)
12. Advantages of Ethiopian project – supported by all stakeholders (56 sec)
13. Sharing IK practices – with Sri Lanka; need to address IPR issues (2:50 min)
14. Capacity building – “we have the potential but we don’t have the capacity” (1:37 min)
15. Summary / closing comments (1:42 min)