IKS and traditional healthcare and wellness

Existing research from across the continent indicate that a large proportion of Africans depend on traditional medicine (TM) for health and wellbeing. As a result of the holistic approach to healthcare, ATM is one of the contested knowledge system with western-oriented sciences. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, while western-oriented sciences emphasize on development of vaccines, ATM and healing systems advance the importance of prevention and environmental healthcare through use of organic foods to strengthen people’s immune systems. This focus area, therefore, will advance the philosophy of food as medicine and the use of medicinal plants and their applications in health care, through scholarship (research), building effective partnerships with IK-holders and practitioners; develop recordal systems for the purpose of knowledge preservation of the resources (e.g. medicinal plants, seeds and fruits), the processes (i.e. practices); support multi-transdisciplinary innovation and entrepreneurship in natural products development, including pharmaceuticals and facilitate protection of the IP, through the complementarity and interface of TM and pharmaceutical industry. As part of the paradigm shift AIIKS will promote complementarity of TM and biomedicine in co-knowledge production for improved public healthcare and wellbeing.