BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE, KOFORIDUA
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| Dr. Henry S. Daannaa, Minister, Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs |
Ghana’s Minister for Chieftaincy and Traditional
Affairs, Dr. Henry S. Daannaa, has indicated that research into indigenous practices
of any people, is key to sustainable development of their community and thus
advocated scientific knowhow of indigenous methods, to enable any form of
development to be achieved.
Delivering the keynote address at the opening of a
five-day training course on local and indigenous knowledge for community-driven
water, sanitation and hygiene initiatives in Koforidua on Monday, March 11,
2013, Dr. Daannaa stated: “In other words, our effort to achieve sustainable
community development will be very much enhanced if we undertake scientific
research into our indigenous knowledge or traditional/customary way of doing
things, so to speak.”
“Our focus as a nation must be to examine our
indigenous skills with a view to sharpening our indigenous knowledge and
thereby avail ourselves with these local methods or techniques in the solution
of problems within our local communities,” the minister stressed.
In his view, “The ultimate objective of us all as
Ghanaians is to be able to sit up and address with all seriousness the question
of our indigenous knowhow or cultural potential,” saying it is the hope of the
Chieftaincy and Traditional Ministry and for that matter the Government of
Ghana, that all stakeholders including the academic and research institutions
will join in the march on the road ahead to examine with a view to improving
upon Ghana’s local indigenous capabilities.
In her introductory remarks at the start of the
course, Dr. Afia Zakiya, Country Representative, WaterAid Ghana an international
development charity and co-sponsor of the training, said as a former assistant
professor in African studies and political science, she has for most part of
her life researched into villages, cities and other aspects of life on the
continent and has become convinced through those specific experiences that
“many of the people I spoke to and who I met, very much had clear concepts and
ideas of how they wanted their life to be.”
“They had clear ideas and concepts of what it would
take to move their communities to a place of wellbeing materially, spiritually,
socially and other kinds of ways,” she stressed.
Dr. Zakiya said it has thus been her mission as an
African woman to do what she can when she finds herself in places of
decision-making, to “support African solutions to African developments.”
She urged participants to ensure that both the
theoretical ideas that support the African world view and African culture to
development efforts, are made as simple as possible and that the practical experiences,
field work, theories and concepts that are engaged in during the course are
made feasible to people in terms of realities and experiences.
“I think if we are able to do that, by what we do
this week, the programme will have served its purpose,” WaterAid Ghana’s
Country Representative stated.
For his part, Mr Bernard Guri, Director, Center for
Indigenous and Organisational Development (CIKOD), organisers of the training,
lamented that native practices which were insisted on by community elders, such
as carrying of a hoe by anyone attending to nature’s call in the bush, was to
enable digging and burying of the faeces, but all that had stopped in the name
of modernity and people are now defecating openly everywhere.
“We think that we need to go back and learn these
things that they have used before and see how if we want to support them we can
help them to do it in a better way and in so doing what is the new knowledge
that we can bring to them,” he said.
Mr. Guri disclosed that CIKOD has decided to employ
the endogenous development method, which only means using the indigenous or
local knowledge that people have and which participants will be apprised of
during the course.
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