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Leroy Dzenga Features Writer

China has been cementing its position as one of the leaders in the modern world.

By any measure, it is now a global powerhouse with strengths in technology and innovation.

Despite the immense progress made on exploring new ideas in sectors like health, the country has managed to maintain its indigenous knowledge systems.

Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) are bodies of knowledge held by people in particular geographical areas that they have survived on for a very long time and the Chinese have kept theirs intact.

So well-kept are the priceless pieces of their being, they have appealed to continents beyond Asia.

In Zimbabwe, natural health supplements from China have for years worked in complementary terms with Western medicine.

There is a trend where organic foods, medicines are being preferred and Chinese products are well positioned to service that need.

“I have been taking Chinese tea for my stomach acids and have not have had any problems since,” said Ms Sekai Madenga, who has been using Chinese herbs for close to a decade.

“The herbs are fairly cheaper and are natural so there are not many side effects. A lot of us have been benefiting since they were introduced to the market.”

Jobs have also been created through this body of knowledge as the distribution of traditional medicines, especially from China are usually done through an agent network.

This allows people to have an opportunity to run small businesses with low capital outlay.

But how has China managed to achieve and maintain prowess on the IKS front?

Political will has been a central element to China’s protracted maintenance of IKS.

There has been consistent policy pronouncements by the Chinese government and investment into research to ensure there is compatibility with contemporary way of life.

China’s President Xi Jinping in his compilation book — The Governance of China 2 — speaks on the importance of paying attention to strengths exclusive to a people and developing them to fit in the present world.

“We must never forget our history, only then can we open up a new era. We should know how to inherit before we become good at innovation,” President Xi said at the Fifth Congress of the International Confucian Association in 2014.

“We should make the past serve the present, taking the past as a mirror for today, distinguishing what can be used, and what cannot, and carrying forward while assimilating instead of esteeming the past.”

This is consistent to what China’s Deputy Ambassador to Zimbabwe told journalists during a workshop in Harare recently.

He said; “What we have done with our traditional knowledge is we have taken what we think works from modern ideas and used it to improve what we have already known.”

Lately, Zimbabwe has been showing intent to emulate the Chinese on that front with the new policy direction in science and technology placing importance in home-grown solutions.

Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Professor Amon Murwira is trying to push the concept of heritage based innovation.

He describes it as; “Research into home-grown ideas which have been part of our way of life since time immemorial.”

Prof Murwira said there was need to deliberately direct science towards the improvement of IKS in Zimbabwe.

“When a country focuses on its unique resources and develops them to meet the needs of the modern world, it can solve most of its problems,” he said. “Our education and science will now be pursuant of ideas that have always been part of us.

“We all know there are herbs that can cure stomach aches, headaches and other diseases. Why can we not improve them then make them part of the mainstream health system?”

It is not just rhetoric, the country has begun taking objective steps towards learning from the best on how IKS can help the country, especially in sectors like health.

In November 2018, President Mnangagwa met with Chinese billionaire Mr Li Jinyuan, who is the chairman of the Tiens Group.

Tiens Group is a Chinese rooted global traditional medicine business entity worth billions.

Mr Li had visited Zimbabwe with prospects to invest in the country, he specifically mentioned the pharmaceutical sector.

Maybe when such stories are brought closer to home, it can be inspiration to those who have the traditional knowledge.

They can get an idea of how much economic potential the information they have carries.

Tiens is one of the major suppliers of traditional Chinese medicines in Zimbabwe and has been increasing its visibility in the country.

Their template can be followed in the creation of local traditional medicine brands.

An Indigenous Knowledge Systems lecturer at the Great Zimbabwe University Dr Faith Sibanda said Zimbabwe has an opportunity to bring inclusive innovation in the country.

“IKS allows people to utilise their natural resources in a way that speaks to their way of life. It is the only way there can be innovation that does not isolate ordinary people from their resources,” he said.

Dr Sibanda said there is need for some unlearning at a higher level, if the Chinese path can be followed.

“Some intellectuals have warped ideas about IKS because they associate it with the uneducated and backward just as the colonisers wanted them to believe,” Dr Sibanda said.

He urged a catch them young approach in re-introducing IKS to society.

“Basic IKS remedies to ailments such as headaches, stomach aches, tooth aches which have various indigenous cures from trees, tree barks, roots, and charcoal need to be taught at basic level. If First Aid can be taught in primary school then our remedies can be taught too,” said Dr Sibanda.

Zimbabwe and China have had a close relationship over the past decades.

There has been mutual benefit through investments, in the same spirit, there should be more conversations around how Zimbabwe can learn from their Asian counterparts on how to keep IKS relevant in the modern society.

IKS goes beyond just medicines, it can relate to architecture, education, tourism, social ideology to mention just a few.

It may be the answer Zimbabwe seeks and luckily, the country has a friend to learn from.

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