**4. Conceptual context**

### **4.1 TK holders' institutions**

TK holders' institutions are complex, multifaceted governance frameworks that deal with diverse subject matters, depending on their functions, to wit: land, livestock, labour-sharing, mutual assistance (social), health, traditional beliefs (including rituals, spiritual leaders & sacred areas), traditional leadership, recreational, and conflict resolution ([2], note 2 at 111). They include customary laws and practices; family secrets; oral agreements; sharing mechanisms; community sanctions; trust; and ostracism [28, 29]. They have remained resilient, and enjoy popular legitimacy because of their 'proximity and intimate familiarity with their communities' which makes them 'more effective in adjudicating disputes, allocating land, and advocating for their constituents than many MPs, local councillors, and state institutions' [30]. The legitimacy also stems from the fact that they function according to cultural norms which people are deeply familiar with, thus facilitating both access and (non-electoral) accountability [30–32], especially where formal state institutions have failed or had limited access. This is in consonance with studies suggesting that 'successful engagement with rural communities should start with recognising that they have institutions through which they can practise or organise collective action' ([2], note 2 at 2). A study conducted on the Mijikenda, confirms that 'respect for the indigenous institutions remains strong' in the community ([23], note 25 at 327-350).

As governance frameworks for TK and natural resources, and data repositories (holding knowledge, social networks, ethos, values, methods of utilising resources and conservation etc.) ([4], note 4 at 6). They are also custodial institutions that aim at 'the continuous use and preservation of the place, its values, and its surrounding environment, including the preservation of its symbolic and cosmological significance' ([4], at 107).

TK holders' institutions generate social capital-binding and bridging social capital-that is considered 'an additional factor of production' [33]. Social capital (social norms, relationships and networks) can be mobilised to address societal challenges, create positive synergies, and ensure efficient use of resources since 'people who share a common background, language, culture, and customs' are able to mobilise resources effectively ([1], note 1 at 4). Social networks allow the formation of linkages between local knowledge and formal sciences that can have positive impacts in society [34, 35].

Withal, local institutions have been conceptualised within a broader set of theories of institutions, where the aim is to 'get institutions right' and/or strengthen institutions ([5], note 4 at 290), [36, 37]. This approach is informed by various factors. First, there is a prevailing view that good governance, strong and accountable institutions are crucial for poverty reduction and development effectiveness [38]. Second, the massive failure of formal state institutions to project their authority, especially in rural contexts, has produced a development agenda fixated on building institutional capacity [39, 40].

Consequently, the inordinate focus on formal institutions, for instance, in the context of TK protection, means that great efforts have been dedicated towards harnessing the IP regime to protect TK rather than on TK holders' institutions. Moreover, overemphasis on formal institutions, has resulted in a negative attitude towards traditional institutions. They have been highly criticised, *inter alia,* for being prone to manipulation by powerful forces in the community, gender bias, and abuse of power [41]. Such criticism, for instance that the institutions have a gender bias, is at times misplaced, since as this study shows, the roles of men and women are clearly recognised in those institutions. This limits the extent to which they can be deployed in encouraging innovation, building strong institutions and promoting entrepreneurship.

#### *Harnessing Traditional Knowledge Holders' Institutions in Realising Sustainable Development… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98802*

Despite the focus on formal institutions, the use of some of those institutions, like the IP regime to protect TK holders' innovations, faces certain technical and practical challenges. For instance, TK and TK based innovation may not meet the necessary criteria for IP protection. Besides, the sort of exclusive rights granted through formal IP protection cannot offer the necessary protection and appropriation to TK holders' innovations, which are mostly developed collectively. In the TK context, non-pecuniary incentives (intrinsic motivation) plays a considerable role in driving innovative behaviour unlike with IP where the 'prospects of exclusivity and financial rewards' are the main incentives ([28], note 43 at 242). Further, the use of the IP system by TK holders is constrained by low levels of awareness of IP, challenges in accessing IP protection measures, lack of technical expertise/personnel and financial resources, low investments in R&D, high cost of filing and challenging enforcement, and inadequate administrative infrastructure ([28], at 237).

Nonetheless, TK holders' can, for instance, use the IP system (such as patent, trademark, geographical indications, or trade secret or confidential information) to: protect their innovation against unauthorised usage of protected IP by competitors; help commercialise IP-protected products and services; help licence inventions and create corresponding technology markets; increase brand-based enterprise recognition; signal to potential venture capital to obtain business finance; limit the right of employees to enter employment with competitors; ensure that information is kept confidential; ensure the transfer of rights related to inventions from employees to companies; and facilitate sharing of rights in the results of cooperative projects in a manner that satisfies all contracting parties ([28], at 236). Indeed, IP becomes more important as interaction between the informal and formal sectors for joint collaborative innovation increases ([28], at 240). Sometimes, too, innovation in the informal sector occurs with the help of formal sector scientific institutions, and vice versa [42] hence the need for the much-developed IP system in protecting the ensuing innovation.

#### **4.2 TK holders' institutions and innovation**

An innovation is defined as 'the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices, workplace organisation or external relations' [43]. In this context, innovative activities include 'the acquisition of machinery, equipment, software and licences, engineering and development work, design, training, marketing and R&D where undertaken to develop and/or implement a product or process innovation' [43]. The motivation for innovation includes the desire to increase market share, enter new markets, improve product range, increase the capacity to produce new goods, reduce costs and so on [44], ([42], note 61 at 54). In the formal sector, markets are recognised as one of the main drivers of innovation. In the context of TK holders, formal markets may not exist [45], as communities might be interested in non-market transactions such as sharing a product rather than taking it to the market to increase market share.

Institutions play a key role in driving innovations, and are one of the five building blocks of innovation systems [46]. Institutions determine the speed, magnitude and quality of innovation processes ([12], note 18 at 6), manage uncertainty, provide information, manage conflicts, promote trust among groups, diffuse innovations, and mediate distributional effects of innovation processes related to social class, gender, age, ethnicity, or political power ([12], at 7). They also provide incentives for learning, knowledge and innovation production ([46], note 66 at 56).

TK holders' institutions play a critical role in driving TK holders' innovation and innovation processes. TK holders' innovations are part of, and are a by-product of TK since TK entails 'knowledge, know-how, innovations, skills and practices' [47, 48] of local communities. Indeed, the innovation process has been conceptualised as one where 'knowledge' is both 'an input and output' since innovations 'reflect the introduction of a new combination of existing knowledge into the economy, and the innovation itself represents new knowledge' [49].

Social capital among TK holders' spurs and enhances innovation ([34], note 52 at 1), ([35], note 52 at 16-18) by facilitating access to resource (contacts, markets, credit and diverse domains of knowledge), and plays a critical role not only in the generation and diffusion of innovation ([33], note 50). Bridging social capital allows TK holders to increase their innovative capacity, meet social goals and expand institutional networks at local level and beyond, as they interact with actors such as financial institutions, development agencies, political elites in the community, and technical experts (including researchers and extension staff) in order to advance their innovation processes ([33], at 1), ([34], note 52 at 1), [50]. Hence, their institutions are useful in bridging the gap between the formal and informal institutions. Conversely, innovation processes contribute to building social capital, both bonding capital (intra-group) and bridging capital (intergroup) within local communities.

Indeed, what makes social capital a vital ingredient to the innovative process is the fact that it 'reduces certain costs like information sharing, transaction costs and enforcement costs and this leaves many resources available for use for innovationrelated expenditure' ([34], at 36). In rural areas, the diffusion of innovation can greatly benefit from the involvement of women since they play a central role in building social networks that are the main media through which new products or services, commercial or otherwise, are proposed, deliberated and accepted or rejected [51]. However, in the context of small firms, strong social capital could be a liability as well as an asset. Sometimes, dense networks might inhibit 'innovative practices and new ideas' while other times absence of ties is said to promote the generation of new ideas and knowledge. Weak ties may also play an important role in bridging the gap between the formal and informal institutions ([33], note 50). However, with TK holders' institutions, the existence of dense networks might not inhibit innovation since there are customary laws that act as normative frameworks, governing the rights and obligations of community members at the individual, clan, family and community levels.

Studies suggest that innovation is occurring in the informal economy ([28], note 43), ([34], note 52 at 2), ([50], note 74) 'in a new set of under-studied contexts', ([42], note 61), [52], ([53], note 79) some of which are relevant to TK holders. One of these contexts is innovation in community-based settings, such as homes, villages, craft workshops and among informal and semi-formal networks [53]. Innovation activities in these contexts are 'extremely diverse, as are the sources of knowledge, learning and innovation that shape and diffuse them' ([42], note 61 at 63). Those innovations are described variously as grassroots, informal, rural, pro-poor, frugal or *jugaad,* local, social, endogenous innovation ([12], note 9 at 9), ([52], note 79), [51, 54]. A discussion of all these innovations is clearly beyond the scope of this study. However, some of these forms of innovation are relevant to TK holders' innovation, as they tend to go beyond enterprise innovation and typical firm incentives to innovate (such as increased revenue and market share) ([44], note 64 at 345). Moreover, such innovations incorporate knowledge domains beyond science, engineering and technology, by paying more attention to innovation metrics that capture spontaneous, process-based, and needs-driven innovations on the demand-side of the economy ([29], note 43 at 4), as discussed below.

Social innovation refers to innovations and processes of innovation that are social in nature (such as networking, collaboration, group formation, organisational governance and management practices), that improve a society's ability

#### *Harnessing Traditional Knowledge Holders' Institutions in Realising Sustainable Development… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98802*

to create opportunities for investment, growth and development [55, 56]. Social innovation recognises that innovations can emerge through self-organisation, selfempowerment and development ([54], note 82 at 5), making it particularly relevant to TK holders who have unique institutions for self-governance, and who hold their TK collectively, and at times for certain social purposes, such as environmental conservation. Pro-poor innovation is relevant to TK holders due to their poor social and economic conditions. Inclusive innovation, *inter alia*, seeks to, ensure the inclusion of all the necessary stakeholders (including the excluded population) in the design, development, and in defining the problems and solutions that an innovation seeks to address ([44], note 64 at 345), [57]. Therefore, inclusive innovation is apposite to TK holders, and women as it eschews the exclusionary nature of conventional innovation where big firms 'produce innovations that are associated with inequality', and that have little connection to low-income populations ([11], note 9 at 1), [58].

Indigenous innovation is rooted in the diverse and distinct cultures of Indigenous peoples' and tied to their long inhabitation in a particular place [59]. Indigenous innovation entails '…cultural autonomy, remembrance and retrieval, self-determination, and community-based values linked with the maintenance, preservation, restoration and revitalisation of indigenous knowledge systems that merge episteme with place and cultural practice.' Each of these aspects are 'continually articulated, debated, redefined, and expanded both within and outside of indigenous communities' ([59], at 4). Indigenous innovation develops in response to threats engendered by ecological and cultural challenges ([59], at 5), especially at the 'level of systems maintenance, where the systems being maintained are interlocking ecological systems and sub-systems' ([35], note 52 at 22).

However, TK holders' innovation marks a conceptual departure from the various domains of innovation, highlighted above, in a number of ways. It departs from inclusive innovation, in the sense that, the latter does not specify the 'marginalised' groups that it is concerned with. Indeed, the target group within inclusive innovation, tends to vary in different contexts ([58], note 88 at 4). TK holders' innovation focuses on TK holders. Local innovation differs from TK holders' innovation in that, with the former, the innovation may not have the necessary linkage to TK, culture, tradition or heritage of the innovators. Moreover, there is also no necessary link between the innovator and the relevant resources (plants and animals) in a cosmological sense. Further, local innovation connotes only context-specific and internal innovation, and is thus conceptually narrower than TK innovation ([52], note 79 at 1, 3). Hence, TK innovation can be described as local, but local innovation may not necessarily be TK innovation. There are relatively more overlaps between TK and Indigenous innovation than with the other types of innovation. While TK innovation is generally informed by TK, Indigenous innovation is underpinned by Indigenous knowledge (IK). TK is the 'totality of all knowledge and practices' used in the management of socio-economic and ecological facets of life while IK is the local knowledge unique to a particular culture and society that identifies itself as Indigenous ([9], note 7 at 3), [60, 61]. Nonetheless, TK and IK may also overlap depending on the political context and experiences of the claimants to the knowledge. For instance, the Indigenous people of North America, may describe IK the same way as TK, but their recognition in international law as Indigenous People, has a jurisprudential connotation that ties them to the use of IK, even though they may not support any suggestion that IK is not TK. Thus, TK holders' innovation is broader, and may encompass indigenous innovation. However, there is a convergence between Indigenous and TK innovation in that both are 'place-based' and 'cosmologically linked to land' in the sense that there is a special relationship between the innovators and a place ([35], note 52 at 2).

However, and for a long time, research and metrics on innovation has focused on innovation within large firms, to the extent that innovation (especially product innovation) is more often equated with R&D ([35], note 52 at 3), ([42], note 61 at 53-55), ([52], note 79), [62] expenditures than on informal means such as 'learning-by-doing,' 'learning-by-using,' 'learning on the job,' self-training and apprenticeships ([29], note 43 at 3-4), ([35], note 52 at 18), [63]. Moreover, conventional innovation metrics value the standardisation of innovation through either IP standards or levels of educational enrolment or attainment, hence inappropriate in investigating the nature, type and extent of TK holders' innovation ([42], note 61 at 55), ([29], note 43 at 21); which could be uncodified and transmitted transgenerationally ([35], note 52 at 18). Further, R&D is equated more or less with product innovation-intensive technological breakthroughs or, in IP circles, patentable inventions ([42], note 61 at 54), making it insufficient in the context of TK holders' innovations that are place-based, cumulative (limited newness), collectively developed and result from interactions with nature, and not R&D ([63], note 98 at 1599).

Thus, there is lack of comprehensive research outlining a coherent theoretical and practical account of TK innovation. Indeed, Rizk *et al* rightfully opine that TK is not included within the broader definition, and understanding of knowledge and innovation ([5], note 4 at 290), ([12], note 9 at 3-4), ([29], note 43 at 8), ([36], note 53), ([37], note 53). Consequently, there is a lack of research linking TK holders' institutions and innovation in Africa, more so in the context of the SDGs.

#### **4.3 TK holders' institutions and building of strong institutions**

As mentioned earlier, the popularity, legitimacy and resilience of TK holders' institutions means that they still play crucial roles in society. TK holders rely on these institutions in natural resources governance, conflict resolution, in maintenance of law and order, and even politics, as is illustrated in the case studies. This means that they can perform important roles in building and strengthening formal institutions, especially where the latter are weak or non-existent.

Social capital helps TK holders build important linkages, within and beyond the community, including with public and private institutions, which help in strengthening institutions ([33], note 50 at 37), ([34], note 52 at 10). The ability of TK holders' institutions to generate innovation, provides knowledge and capacity for implementing policy initiatives, and 'fill in the void created by the limited penetration of national institutions' especially 'in the presence of weak state capacity' [64]. For instance, with the institutional crisis bedevilling IP institutions in spurring and promoting TK holders' innovation among communities ([45], note 65 at 6), collaborations between TK holders' and IP institutions can enrich the latter, and address the inadequacy, deficiency and unsuitability of the IP regime in protecting TK. Such collaborations, can break the barrier to scaling up TK holders' innovative activity, for instance, if communities can have some 'exclusive rights' over their innovations, they might develop their businesses beyond a certain stage, and possibly be incentivised to invest in machines or human capital ([28], note 43 at 255). This is so because, the dynamics of innovation benefits from a system in which all actors (including TK holders and their institutions) in the innovation paradigm work together in a collaborative manner. Such collaborations enhance good governance, inclusivity in innovation and the building of strong institutions from below, as communities participate in the development dialogue.

Moreover, TK holders' institutions are able to address the gender gap and institutional barriers to innovation within the IP regime. For instance, in a study of Zulu women bead-workers, Desmond Oriakhogba demonstrates that through social entrepreneurship and inclusive innovation, rural women crafters are 'getting around the challenges within the IP regimes by developing a community which fosters inclusion, collaboration, knowledge-sharing and continuous learning among themselves' [65]. This way, the women are 'constantly improving and harnessing their indigenous knowledge and empowering themselves to be able to address their personal and shared social challenges of poverty, inadequate health care, housing, access to education for their children, among others' ([65], at 145-172).
