Circular bioeconomy in African food systems: What is the status quo? Insights from Rwanda, DRC, and Ethiopia.

Increasing global food insecurity amidst a growing population and diminishing production resources renders the currently dominant linear production model insufficient to combat such challenges. Hence, a circular bioeconomy (CBE) model that ensures more conservative use of resources has become essential. Specifically, a CBE model that focuses on recycling and reusing organic waste is essential to close nutrient loops and establish more resilient rural-urban nexus food systems. However, the CBE status quo in many African food systems is not established. Moreover, scientific evidence on CBE in Africa is almost inexistent, thus limiting policy guidance to achieving circular food systems. Using a sample of about 2,100 farmers and consumers from key food value chains (cassava in Rwanda, coffee in DRC, and bananas in Ethiopia), we explored existing CBE practices; awareness, knowledge, and support for CBE practices; consumers' opinions on eating foods grown on processed organic waste (CBE fertilizers), and determinants of such opinions. We analysed data in Stata, first descriptively, and then econometrically using the ordered logistic regression, whose proportional odds assumption was violated, thus resorting to the generalized ordered logistic regression. Results show that communities practice aspects of CBE, mainly composting, and are broadly aware, knowledgeable, supportive of CBE practices, and would broadly accept eating foods grown CBE fertilizers. Households with heads that used mobile phones, or whose heads were older, or married, or had a better education and agricultural incomes were more likely to strongly agree that they were knowledgeable and supportive of CBE practices and would eat CBE foods (foods grown on processed organic waste). However, the reverse was true for households that were severely food insecure or lived farther from towns. Rwandan and Ethiopian households compared to DRC were less likely to eat CB foods. Policies to stimulate CBE investments in all three countries were largely absent, and quality scientific evidence to guide their development and implementation is currently insufficient.

Patient-centered boundary mechanisms to foster intercultural partnerships in health care: a case study in Guatemala.

BACKGROUND: Up to one half of the population in Africa, Asia and Latin America has little access to high-quality biomedical services and relies on traditional health systems. Medical pluralism is thus in many developing countries the rule rather than the exception, which is why the World Health Organization is calling for intercultural partnerships to improve health care in these regions. They are, however, challenging due to disparate knowledge systems and lack of trust that hamper understanding and collaboration. We developed a collaborative, patient-centered boundary mechanism to overcome these challenges and to foster intercultural partnerships in health care. To assess its impact on the quality of intercultural patient care in a medically pluralistic developing country, we conducted and evaluated a case study. METHODS: The case study took place in Guatemala, since previous efforts to initiate intercultural medical partnerships in this country were hampered by intense historical and societal conflicts. It was designed by a team from ETH Zurich's Transdisciplinarity Lab, the National Cancer Institute of Guatemala, two traditional Councils of Elders and 25 Mayan healers from the Kaqchikel and Q'eqchi' linguistic groups. It was implemented from January 2014 to July 2015. Scientists and traditional political authorities collaborated to facilitate workshops, comparative diagnoses and patient referrals, which were conducted jointly by biomedical and traditional practitioners. The traditional medical practices were thoroughly documented, as were the health-seeking pathways of patients, and the overall impact was evaluated. RESULTS: The boundary mechanism was successful in discerning barriers of access for indigenous patients in the biomedical health system, and in building trust between doctors and healers. Learning outcomes included a reduction of stereotypical attitudes towards traditional healers, improved biomedical procedures due to enhanced self-reflection of doctors, and improved traditional health care due to refined diagnoses and adapted treatment strategies. In individual cases, the beneficial effects of traditional treatments were remarkable, and the doctors continued to collaborate with healers after the study was completed. Comparison of the two linguistic groups illustrated that the outcomes are highly context-dependent. CONCLUSIONS: If well adapted to local context, patient-centered boundary mechanisms can enable intercultural partnerships by creating access, building trust and fostering mutual learning, even in circumstances as complex as those in Guatemala. Creating multilateral patient-centered boundary mechanisms is thus a promising approach to improve health care in medically pluralistic developing countries.

Maya phytomedicine in Guatemala - Can cooperative research change ethnopharmacological paradigms?

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: This paper presents one of the first large-scale collaborative research projects in ethnopharmacology, to bring together indigenous stakeholders and scientists both in project design and execution. This approach has often been recommended but rarely put into practice. The study was carried out in two key indigenous areas of Guatemala, for which very little ethnopharmacological fieldwork has been published. AIM OF THE STUDY: To document and characterize the ethno-pharmacopoeias of the Kaqchikel (highlands) and Q'eqchi' (lowlands) Maya in a transdisciplinary collaboration with the two groups Councils of Elders. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The project is embedded in a larger collaboration with five Councils of Elders representing important indigenous groups in Guatemala, two of which participated in this study. These suggested healing experts reputed for their phytotherapeutic knowledge and skills. Ethnobotanical fieldwork was carried out over 20 months, accompanied by a joint steering process and validation workshops. The field data were complemented by literature research and were aggregated using a modified version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) and Trotter & Logan's consensus index. RESULTS: Similar numbers of species were collected in the two areas, with a combined total of 530 species. This total does not represent all of the species used for medicinal purposes. Remedies for the digestive system, the central nervous system & behavioral syndromes, and general tissue problems & infections were most frequent in both areas. Furthermore, remedies for the blood, immune & endocrine system are frequent in the Kaqchikel area, and remedies for the reproductive system are frequent in the Q'eqchi' area. Consensus factors are however low. The Kaqchikel, in contrast to the Q'eqchi', report more remedies for non-communicable illnesses. They also rely heavily on introduced species. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The transdisciplinary research design facilitated scientifically rigorous and societally relevant large-scale fieldwork, which is clearly beneficial to indigenous collaborators. It provided access and built trust as prerequisites for assembling the largest comparative ethnopharmacological collection, vastly extending knowledge on Maya phytotherapy. The collection represents knowledge of the two groups' most reputed herbalists and is a representative selection of the Guatemalan medicinal flora. ICD-10 proved useful for making broad comparisons between the groups, but more refined approaches would be necessary for other research objectives. Knowledge in the two areas is highly diverse and seems fragmented. New approaches are required to assess how coherent Maya phytotherapy is. The documented 'traditional' ethno-pharmacopoeias demonstrate dynamic change and acculturation, reflecting the two linguistic groups' sociocultural history and context. This highlights the adaptive potential of phyto-therapeutic knowledge and calls the equation of local indigenous pharmacopoeias with 'traditional' medicine into question. We suggest using the term 'local' pharmacopoeias, and reserving the term 'traditional' for the study of indigenous pharmacopoeias with a clear delineation of ancient knowledge.

Relationships that Heal: Beyond the Patient-Healer Dyad in Mayan Therapy.

Biomedicine fosters particular styles of interaction and behaviors, with the therapeutic relationship seen as occurring between a doctor and patient. In contrast, where alternative modalities of healing are practiced, relationships go beyond a dyadic interaction and include wider social networks. In this article, we propose the existence of a 'therapeutic unit' in Maya healing practices in Guatemala that binds healer, wellness seeker, family, and community members, along with the spiritual and natural realms, into a coherent system requiring all of these elements to achieve success. Drawing on interviews with 67 Maya healers, we describe healers' understanding of raxnaq'il nuk'aslemal (well-being), and show how these interactions activate wider networks that play crucial roles during treatments. We highlight how holism is expressed in relationships typical of indigenous healing systems, and how an appreciation of this is important for developing culturally appropriate health care provision systems.

Transdisciplinary Research on Cancer-Healing Systems Between Biomedicine and the Maya of Guatemala: A Tool for Reciprocal Reflexivity in a Multi-Epistemological Setting.

Transdisciplinarity (TD) is a participatory research approach in which actors from science and society work closely together. It offers means for promoting knowledge integration and finding solutions to complex societal problems, and can be applied within a multiplicity of epistemic systems. We conducted a TD process from 2011 to 2014 between indigenous Mayan medical specialists from Guatemala and Western biomedical physicians and scientists to study cancer. Given the immense cultural gap between the partners, it was necessary to develop new methods to overcome biases induced by ethnocentric behaviors and power differentials. This article describes this intercultural cooperation and presents a method of reciprocal reflexivity (Bidirectional Emic-Etic tool) developed to overcome them. As a result of application, researchers observed successful knowledge integration at the epistemic level, the social-organizational level, and the communicative level throughout the study. This approach may prove beneficial to others engaged in facilitating participatory health research in complex intercultural settings.