Reviving Resilience: Extracting Indigenous Knowledge through Evaluation in Health, Climate Change, and Agriculture among Indigenous Communities in Kenya

The world today faces mounting challenges: climate volatility, persistent food insecurity, emerging health threats, and shrinking development financing. As global shocks increase in frequency and complexity, it is becoming increasingly clear that dominant, externally driven development models alone are insufficient. There is a pressing need to reclaim and revalue Indigenous Knowledge (IK) as a vital source of resilience, sustainability, and cultural identity.
Kenya, like many countries in Africa, is home to rich Indigenous Knowledge systems rooted in generations of lived experience with the land, health, and ecosystem stewardship. These knowledge systems have long provided adaptive strategies in agriculture (e.g., seed selection, water harvesting), health (e.g., herbal medicine, birth practices), and environmental management (e.g., seasonal forecasting, land use). Yet, despite their proven relevance, much of this knowledge remains undocumented, undervalued, or at risk of being lost altogether.
At the same time, donor funding for traditional development programming is shrinking. This shift calls for new paradigms of development that leverage locally grounded, cost-effective, and culturally responsive knowledge systems. The team shares some of the indigenous knowledge extracted, and documented, among the Indigenous communities in Kenya, with a focus on health, climate change adaptation, and agriculture, to build a strong evidence base for policy and practice.