CONTENTS

Forward …………………………………………………………………………………………4
Introduction to the Aims of THIN …………………………………………………………7
Rural knowledge and Heritage systems ……………………………………………….11
Integrated Health delivery ………………………………………………………………..12
Small holder agricultural and food security ………………………………………….15
Poverty alleviation and livestock productivity systems …………………………….16
Conservation and sustainable environmental management ……………………..18
Linking biodiversity and natural resources services………………………………..20
Conservation and sustainable development ………………………………………….22
Human capacity and Research Training ………………………………………………22
Information and communication Technologies ICTS ……………………………….24
Implementation ……………………………………………………………………………..25
Funding ……………………………………………………………………………………….26
Monitoring and Evaluation ……………………………………………………………….27
Origins and Goals of THIN ……………………………………………………………….28
Purpose and Rationale for THIN Organization ……………………………………….31
The Role of Traditional and Cultural knowledge in development ……………….35
Primary Healthcare as a development imperative …………………………………..36
Purpose for THIN ……………………………………………………………………………38
Evolution of Mandate and programmes since inception …………………………..38
Traditional Healthcare systems …………………………………………………………41
Collaboration, participation, partnerships and networking ………………………48
Partnerships …………………………………………………………………………………49
Networking …………………………………………………………………………………..50
Research Associate ship (RA) ……………………………………………………………55
Post doctoral Associate ship (PDA) ……………………………………………………..55
Professional Technical Training (PTT) ………………………………………………….55
Study workshops (SWS) ………………………………………………………………….56
The Science Students Fellowships (SSF) ……………………………………………...56
Community based organizations’ Training (COBOT) ……………………………….56
Global Exchange Programmes (GEP) …………………………………………………..57
Achievements to-date and linkages with other institutions ……………………...58
Achievements in Training …………………………………………………………………59
Implementation challenges …………………………………………………………. …..59
Lessons learnt ……………………………………………………………………………….60
Research and Training Achievements …………………………………………………60
The Current structure of governance of THIN ……………………………………….62
The THIN Organization .…………………………………………………………………..62
Board Meetings ……………………………………………………………………………..62
Administration and Management ………………………………………………………63
The THIN mandate …………………………………………………………………………63
Strategic principles, Research priorities, Quality control and output ………….64
Planning process ……………………………………………………………………………64
Assigning priorities …………………………………………………………………………65
Long term perspectives of THIN ……………………………………………………. …..67
Implications for capital development and phasing ………………………………….69
International cooperation …………………………………………………………………71
Resource mobilization and fund raising ………………………………………………73
How you can help …………………………………………………………………………..74
Reply Form …………………………………………………………………………………..75
THINS integrated Health and Development Programmes and projects ………..78

Forward

Traditional Health integration network, fondly known as THIN, is one of the national non-governmental, not for profit organizations working on sustainable development in Kenya, with a vision, mission and values.
THIN brings together communities and other partners on a selective basis, firstly to undertake high quality participatory learning, education and research training to health and development issues facing Kenya and the East African region. First to empower the local people, to give them right to assume growing responsibility for their own health and welfare and their communities and to help them generate the means to do so. Secondly, to take a strong lead in developing education, research-training and development priorities and to enhance the utilization of research findings for policy formulation and programme development. Thirdly, to stimulate, support and improve skills, knowledge and techniques based on local resources and management systems relatively unknown to formal health research and management, that will provide a wide range of products and services applicable across the communities in the multitude of environments.
In complexly differentiated societies like ours, ordinary people playing out their ordinary lives are enmeshed in devising and enacting ideas and activities that are responsive to their immediate needs. Immersed in such actions, they rarely have the time or resources to assemble information on the multiple facets of their situations, to reflect on their meaning, to envision larger contexts in which they might variously be interpreted, or to contemplate feasible and conceivable alternatives to their situations. Additionally, the alliances, accommodations, ruses, mutings, euphemizations and other necessary avoidances of ordinary life may lead people to miss seeing many aspects of their situations and to develop legitimate and accommodating meanings for what they do see. THIN is a built-in procedure for looking for levels of reality other than those given in the official interpretations of society (a mandate to) look beyond the immediately given and publicly approved interpretations …. [in order to] observe the machinery that goes into the construction of our survival.
Traditional and indigenous practices of healthcare that benefits 70 per cent of the Kenyan population have not been based on a thorough analysis of the prevailing systems so as to add value. We need determination to invest in healthcare, because health is the strength of our nation; and a key social sector of our development. Health research and information are among our strengths, but these projects are about looking forwards, not backwards. We live in a time of rapid changes and THIN is focusing its work to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Research is valued as a complex activity of successive and unending revisions carried out over an extended period of time, and different from specific research efforts that are concerned and valued as tactics in battle skirmishes or isolated virtuoso or prima dona performances.
THINs education, research training priorities focuses on clarifying linkages between traditional health practices methods and heritages and poverty reduction. To develop tools and technologies by blending (integrating) sustainable traditional and cultural practices with modern science for sustainable livelihoods; while keeping the traditional bonds of solidarity that have evolved for centuries, while giving science and participatory learning a meaning.
THIN is responsible for activities in Kenya, where the development challenges are tougher than anywhere in the world. But the national capacity for addressing these issues exists and will increase, and will need strengthening, and there is not a situation for international organizations to muzzle such growth. Our role is to support and supplement, drawing on or global partnerships and sometimes where there is need to take the lead in developing new opportunities and technologies.
The projects outlines in this document show that THIN has been working in Kenya over seven years and wishes to work in the next decade and beyond. The strategic themes have been identified as those which THIN can make a difference, both because there is a clearly defined need, and also because we have the necessary expertise. THIN strategies have evolved over the years in response to expanded knowledge about development and Kenya’s development needs. These health programmes have been designed with very close and active participation with our partners. I therefore comment these plans to you, and invite you to join us in working towards our vision, nurture new mechanisms and partnerships, thus sharing with us not only the dreams and hopes but also the responsibilities and the costs.

Andrew Chapya
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
March 2009

INTRODUCTION TO THE AIMS OF THIN

Kenya is facing unprecedented development challenges but even bigger opportunities. It is blessed with astounding natural resources base, with a wonderfully rich culture and history. Kenyans share a strong sense of national identity.
However, endemic diseases, food insecurity, poverty, gender inequality and environmental degradation all confront the country. Over the last three decades:-
• The number of food insecure people in Kenya has more than doubled to 70%;
•Malnutrition in Kenya’s children and women rose by 70& - the number is increasing everyday;
•On average one in every five children in Kenya dies after the fifth birthday because of lack of access of unequal healthcare;
•Life expectancy has dropped from 60 years in 1975 to 45 years in 2005;
•The country is still haunted by many lethal infections and infestations and a variety of diseases are co-related to socio-economic status of the people;
•HIV/A is killing 10 Kenyans per hour with women who make 70% of the full-time farmers and 87% of the total agricultural workforce bearing the brunt;
•Per capita income of about $312 per year was lower in 2002 than $380 in 1975;
•Over the same period GPD per capita growth averaged negative 1%;
•More than 50 tons of nutrients are lost annually from Kenyan soils
By most countries estimate, almost 20 million people lack the calories, protein, vitamins and minerals needed for normally healthy life. Millions are constantly hungry, others suffer from deficiency diseases and from infections they would be able to resist on a better diet and knowledge. Children are most affected. According to one estimate, six million children under five die every year from combined effects of malnutrition and infection. In some areas, half the children born can be expected to die before their fifth birthday.
With rampant unemployment, many Kenyans cannot access health services, and healthy foods. They continue to rely on subsistence farming. Currently an average of 100,000 active Kenyans leave employment yearly and more than 700,000 join the job market yearly. Although only 20 per cent of the total land cover is suitable for cultivation, agriculture is the most important economic activity accounting for 25% of the GDP. The country has a dual base, with the bulk of the population existing in subsistence peasant economy and modern monetary sector, based on imports and on specialized production of tea, sugar can, flowers. Since 1989, there has been definite retardation in the rate of expansion of the economy, unemployment bringing a per capita GDP of $380.
Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals of poverty and economic development has stalled in Kenya. Since 80% of the poor live in rural areas, sustaining their existence by farming small plots or breeding cattle, sheep, goat or camels for income; healthcare and agriculture are central to improving the livelihoods of the poor.
The strategy describes how we will contribute to the global development agenda, focusing on Kenya where our activities are based.
We will not be able to face these challenges alone. We will need your participation and support. For those purpose, we have been given created a website page by Nabour, which will evolve as THIN evolves and should function as an interactive two-way avenue for strengthening our communication with our audiences.

VISION

THIN’s vision is “Basic Healthcare and prosperity throughout Kenya”. We are committed to this vision, to focus on our work and remain motivated to this vision. It is a vision that recognizes the basic need of adequate food and healthcare as well as development as an urgent priority. And it also acknowledges aspirations to an equitable share of the world’s wealth and prosperity, rather than the small and declining share on which we currently have to live. “Health First, Health is Wealth”.

MISSION

THIN is a National, non-governmental, not-for-profit development oriented organization. THIN mission in Kenya is to improve livelihoods through the generation, dissemination and application of mission-oriented cross-cutting science and technology in sustainable healthcare delivery, agriculture and natural resources management.
THN’s research agenda is dynamic, flexible and responsive to emerging development challenges.
Our goal is to improve livelihoods, particularly in rural and peri-urban areas where poverty is overwhelming. We contribute to this goal by generating, disseminating and applying knowledge – involving basic, applied and adaptive research; capacity building and training, education, rural development projects and delivery of products and services.
Core Values: Quality in all our operations, commitment, integrity, transparency, accountability, efficiency, flexibility and local ownership.
THIN are focusing in 8 specific areas of sustainable healthcare delivery, agriculture and natural resource management described in the following sections.

STRATEGIC THEMES

THIN is focusing its activities on eight (8) strategic themes that meet its mission, that impact on the livelihoods of the rural poor in Kenya. The poor in Kenya comprise 50% of the population and include women heading households, adolescences, school leavers, the elderly poor, pastoralists, small scale farmers, the landless, the handicapped and unemployed.
•Rural knowledge and heritage systems
•Integrated human health and welfare delivery
•Small scale farmers development and food security
•Poverty alleviation through livestock production systems
•Conservation and sustainable environmental management
•Linking bio-diversity and natural resources management
•Health Capacity Research Training
•Information and Communication technologies
The eight (8) themes are linked and over-lapping, forming a cohesive body of work. In the following pages we expand these themes and identify specific areas in which THIN is working.

RURAL KNOWLEDGE AND HERITAGE SYSTEMS

Neglect of value systems in different communities and the one-way flow of information that it implies, has proved ineffective in promoting rural development in Kenya. Decades of high level trainings and structured extension visits have had modest impacts. Cuts in government expenditures are further disabling public sector training and extension systems.
The wide range of interfacing knowledge to the needs of the particular end users (local communities, farmers, development professional’s extension workers) is not under the sole ownership of scientists, doctor’s extension workers, nurses, but all parties have their knowledge to contribute to the development problems. Indigenous technical knowledge is now recognized but still under-utilized asset.
Liberalization and privatization now occurring in many countries of sub-saharan Africa, the withdrawal of input subsidies and relaxation of farm and primary price controls creates opportunities for the knowledge and information rich, but also risks further marginalizing the poor. Much long-established often culturally embedded indigenous knowledge is being eroded by the rapid changes being experienced by many peoples.
Understanding how farmers, traditional practitioners and the communities acquire and use information and knowledge, and enabling them to do it more effectively in a rapidly changing environment is crucial to the successes of rural development. Knowledge represents a synthesis of information and an understanding of their information. This type of information is different from “data”.
New approaches to the generation and use of knowledge by and for rural communities are needed. The potential incorporation of indigenous knowledge with development programmes designed to improve practices and systems is critical in establishing a major research and development phase. And new partnerships between government, non-government, private sector, producers and manufacturers organizations must be forged. Farmers, traditional practitioners are not target beneficiaries, but clients or customers.
Goal: Empowering rural communities with knowledge for improved decision making
Priorities areas for THIN and partners:
•Participatory approaches to knowledge generation and use
•Indigenous technical knowledge
•Rural resource centres, telecentres
•Knowledge and information pathways
•Alternative models for knowledge dissemination
•Dissemination materials for rural communities

INTEGRATED HEALTH DELIVERY

Public and Private health facilities in Kenya display wide disparities in distribution of health services. Many of them suffer a severe shortage of medical manpower, varying degrees of efficiency administration and financial limitations, coupled with difficult issues, such as relative emphasis placed on curative services as against preventive services, the most effective use of skilled manpower and the co-ordination of public and private health services.
One of the major constraints involved in improving the delivery of basic health services (BHS) has been and is, still remains the lack of trained health manpower at all echelons, both from the quantitative aspect, that is, insufficient number of various categories of health workers to man the existing health facilities according to established norms, and its qualitative aspect. It has also become apparent that the training of health workers does not prepare them sufficiently for the tasks they have to perform so as to offer the population comprehensive services with special emphasis on the major health problem areas.

•Family health including family planning
•Communicable diseases
•Diseases and conditions resulting from or provoked by inadequate environmental management
•Health problems related to malnutrition and under nutrition
However, modern health services are not introduced in a vacuum. Traditional healthcare and medicine exits everywhere in Kenya, supporting up to 80% of the population for 90% of their health needs. The ration of traditional health workers to the population in Kenya is 1:350 whereas the ration of medical doctors to the population is 1:70,000.
One of the main obstacles to further co-operation between traditional and modern systems is the residual suspicion among many western trained professionals that charlatanism is endemic in the traditional context. The fact that traditional techniques and remedies have frequently not “lent themselves” to the qualification and have not been tested and documented, has reinforced this fear.
In China, in particular, some notable successes have resulted from the integration of traditional and western systems. For example, there are more than three million “bare foot doctors” at work who use both western and traditional techniques and who often obtain results by methods that are as economical as they are effective. The recent upsurge of interest in traditional systems is attributable to this success by using traditional healthcare delivery systems side-by-side with modern systems apart from comprehensive healthcare programmes in cities and communes. The Chinese experience is contributing to the re-appraisal being accorded to traditional health systems throughout the developed and developing countries.
A coordinated approach in encouraging traditional health workers to receive more official training, while acknowledging the value of their empirical experience on one hand, and on the other, encouraging doctors and nurses to study the work of community health workers and their great knowledge of botanical lore to ascertain their properties would provide a source of basic information and tools to be used to achieve equitable healthcare. By taking steps to examine traditional systems in the light of modern science with a view of adopting effective practices and discouraging the harmful ones, and, with the prospect of not only collaboration between the traditional and western systems but with the possibility of integration would be possible when conditions favour.
Goal: Providing minimum basic rural health services to the maximum number of people

Priority areas for THIN and Partners
•Participatory approaches to knowledge generation and use
•Knowledge and information pathways
•Indigenous technical knowledge
•Capacity building
•Inventories and collections for health promotion
•Screening hundreds and thousands of natural products for phermaceticals.
•Rural resource networks and centres

SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY

Kenya is endowed with a great variety of plants and climates. Among these plants are the cultivated land races, their wild or weedy races as well as scores of other underutilized or neglected species.
Their contribution to agriculture, medicines, industry and the environment amounts to millions of dollars each year. And even if the uses are not well known, they play an important role in many other ways, including cycling nutrients, stabilizing the climate, controlling soil erosion and desertification.
However, national food policies for self-sufficiency in feeding rapidly increasing populations still tend to be based on a few well researched on-farm varieties of staple food crops, rather than on the utilization of the rich generic diversity to be found among farmers’ traditional varieties, thereby tending to displace indigenous knowledge and the availability of traditional crops. Available genetic resources germplasm from wild crops relatives may have genes from major disease and pest resistance that is necessary for developing crops that are adapted to the climate and environments, and, in several instances, products of traditional crops, unlike products of genetic engineering or modification draw little controversy and are widely acceptable for their traits that allow them to adapt to stress, such as diseases and pests.
Globalization and the liberalization taking place in our countries represent both threats and opportunities. Among the effects that have come to the fore is the ease with which plant pests, animal and human diseases, are a permanent threat to crops and livestock production. Small holder farmers have limited access to credit and external inputs like pesticides, fertilizers and mechanizations. Future progress depends on small holder farm lands which are in fragile environments that are low in fertility and productivity. Unless new crop varieties and new technologies are developed, the fate of these farmers and their families appears sealed. These farmers will be condemned to growing food on marginal lands with meager resources, whose consequences will be dire as low productivity tends to perpetuate poverty.
Small holder commodity chains that sustain rural livelihoods and survive in the global market through application of cross-cutting science to access, preserve and protect genetic resources to conservation of valuable on-farm agro-biodiversity to improved crop varieties using community based participatory approach that focuses on adding value are at hand.
Goal: Enabling small holder growers become food-secure and compete in global markets

Priority areas for THIN and Partners:
•Indigenous knowledge systems
•Capacity building
•Post harvest processing and preservation
•Sustainable production methods
•Quality and productivity of small holder communities
•Market opportunities and reliable information
•Small holder commodity networks

POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

Livestock contributes to the livelihoods and food security of much of the rural areas, as well as to some of the urban populations. They supply high quality edible products, which are essential constituents of the diets of the children and pregnant nursing mothers, particularly among the most vulnerable families who grow no crops and help generate capital assets by providing materials that can be processed to add value and when sold or bartered, generate income for their owners. They are also a source of animal power for tillage and transport.
Nevertheless, livestock have been underutilized for poverty eradication. In general livestock projects and programmes have not had a pro-poor focus. Historically the aim of most development activities has been on improving productivity and not on the health and households involved. The belief was that by supporting a strong livestock sector, there would be trickle down benefits to the poor. Indeed, even to-day arguments and justifications for livestock development most often centre on global food needs and the demand for meat and milk by the wealthier consumers. Thus, although new frameworks of development support a focus on the poor, old arguments regarding the importance of a strong livestock sector and the secondary benefits to the impoverished stubbornly persist. Yet livestock are important in supporting the livelihoods not only of poor farmers, but also consumers, traders and labourers.
Poor farmers usually have few animals, so the loss of one individual animal has proportionately greater significance. They also have few resources on which to survive during lean times, and which they can use for recovery. Yet animal disease syndromes are an everyday occurrence to these people, as the animals of the poor are particularly vulnerable to diseases (due to many reasons, including modern science about their management and control and lack of access to and resources for animal health and production inputs and services).
Malnutrition is rife in many communities and livestock products, particularly meat and milk provide an opportunity to overcome this by providing proteins and micronutrients and vitamins. Furthermore livestock are powerful means of enhancing the purchasing power of the poor through the sale of their products, income that can be used for purchase of food, education and healthcare, and when it comes to environment, livestock are a most valuable asset providing essential fertilizer for crop productive, unavailable or unaffordable in any other form. The endorsement of livestock importance becomes even more appealing when the focus is poverty alleviation, rather than national agricultural production and development, given the multiple roles played by livestock in the lives of the poor in the rural areas.
Given the importance of livestock to the poor, promoting opportunities, facilitating employment and enhancing security through cross-cutting science and technology by preventing and controlling diseases of their animals that impact livestock production, and human health, will have direct and major impacts on poverty alleviation.
Within the populations of the poor people, women are particularly likely to benefit from improved animal production. They are particularly vulnerable in the country, but with their primary responsibility for the management of livestock in most ethnic groups and for the marketing of many livestock products, they stand to be the major beneficiaries of improved animal health and production.
Goal: Increasing potential food supply and income for the poor

Priorities areas for THIN and Partners.
•Indigenous livestock knowledge systems
•Capacity building and transfer of technology and information
•Sustainable livestock disease control
•Bio-feeds and bio-pesticides development
•Livestock keepers networks

CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Our environment is a fragile but functional self-supporting unit of nature on which our livelihoods depends. In it living things (vegetation, insects, animals, micro-organisms and people) co-exist and interact with non-living things (air, soil, water and minerals) to form a stable ecosystem.
Unfortunately, most of our development activities have continued to simply exploit the earth’s ecosystems and raw materials and release large quantities of waste and toxic materials into the system. Pollution is poisoning our soils and water, damaging the ozone layer which causes global warming with attendant risks. If these activities continue unchecked at the present rate, we will eventually run out of our natural resources and threaten our survival, including most living things in the planet on which we depend.
The environmental problems faced by our communities include polluted air, water, streets, homesteads, factories, inefficient garbage disposal, soil erosion, chemical disposal among others. These problems are as a result of lack of awareness of the local environmental issues and lack concern embedded in people’s value systems. Traditional patterns of information flow fail to capture the energy of the people who perform over half of labor and make many of the most important decisions. Closer involvement of women is vital to the success of development projects as well as being a basic step towards raising women’s social status, and helping to actuate their immense potential contribution to development.
A basic programme in environmental awareness and education would provide a sound foundation for the stakeholders, especially women and children, industrialists, consumers, to participate in projects that address local environmental problems. Kenyan women are primarily responsible for farming accompanied by their children, both in terms of their labour contribution (nearly double that of men) and decisions. In 50% of the cases they make agricultural decisions on their own, and about 20% they participate in joint decision making. As the primary procurers of firewood, fodder and water, they play an important role in the use and misuse of natural resources. The youth and children are still young susceptible and easy to persuade. They happen to be the future leaders and managers who will be expected to make important decisions.
Goal: Conserve the biological biodiversity, genetic species and ecosystems diversity and biological processes in Kenya with the needs and aspirations of people of Kenya

Priority areas for THIN and Partners:-
•Environmental education activities by collaborating with national and local educational institutions. THIN strives to integrate environmental education in all its field projects and natural strategies. It is envisioned that this will clarify to the local communities and other stakeholders the linkages between their social and economic activities and the natural resource base.
•Capacity building – to increase the number of professionals who can contribute to conservation in Kenya as well as to enable ordinary citizens to effectively undertake conservation and sustainable management. THIN’s multi-faced approach is also intended to build skills of other partners and stakeholders.
•Policy – Promote and support development and implementation of sound environmental policies and legislation.
•Sustainable use: striving to build the capacity of local and nationals to monitor and regulate their levels of natural resources and biodiversity uses.

LINKING BIODIVERSITY AND NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Biodiversity is being lost at a rate unprecedented since the dinosaur’s demise 65 million years ago. Extinction rates are now 100 to 1000 times the rate before humans appeared, due to habitat loss, over exploitation and invasive species. Genetic erosion and control over genetic resources have become major political as well as ecological, technological, legal and economic issues of global dimensions.
Many of the lost species have never been described. Of the 13 to 15 million species of organisms on earth, only 1 million are known to science-insects accounting to over half. Fungi are probably the second largest group, but less than 5% of the species have been described.
The use of biodiversity holds a great promise for the communities in Kenya but also the potential of further marginalization and exploitation. Kenya’s dependence on biological resources for economic and cultural purposes has not been given appropriate recognition.
African societies fostered belief systems as well as social norms that encouraged or even re-enforced limits to its exploitation such production methods, and the values that underlie and re-enforce them, were well adopted to local conditions in the past but in many cases at best, they are now becoming obsolete and perhaps counter-productive. Bio-piracy of biodiversity and the associated indigenous knowledge is already known to be occurring.
Conserving biodiversity is essential because it sustains the biosphere in which man lives, but there are many other more readily perceived benefits. Around 50-60% of the top prescription drugs in the United States are either natural products and their derivatives or synthetic compounds modeled on natural products. Genetic modification techniques now mean that biodiversity is a source of genes as well as products. Conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of the benefits of biodiversity must go hand in hand.
The transition to sustainable economic growth and social development requires a broad-based change in thinking and actions about local natural resource base and biodiversity in the ways that decisions are made about investments and exploitation. Research is required to gather and formally represent associated scientific ecological knowledge in order to assess its potential contribution to biosciences as a discipline and development imperative as well as its practical utility to the local people through extension workers and/or scientific researchers.
Goal: Building national capacity in conservation and utilization of biological diversity

Priority areas for THIN and Partners:
•Inventories and collections of important biodiversity
•National capacity for bio-prospecting and evaluating natural products
•Gene bank networks to safeguard the plant generic resources in Kenya

HUMAN CAPACITY AND RESEARCH TRAINING

So many of the advances in health are as a result of yesteryears research. Many fundamental qualities of the institutions of the majority of people in the developed world now taken completely for granted in everyday life are the products of previous investments in research.
Little progress has been made in Kenya to tie in research and development. The research in many areas of healthcare in the country tends to be scattered upstream and descriptive, sometimes with a lot of duplication. Researchers in Kenya have only limited access to the critical mass, limited access to information and published work. They are unaware of published and on-going work in their country, let alone outside the country owing to financial constraints.
There are many areas of research-training in human, crop, livestock and biodiversity management and utilization that can provide major contributions to the development and transfer of disease control technologies. These include the development of their genetics from the natural resources and biodiversity to treat diseases that are susceptible to drugs, the development of diagnostic tests to ensure that the right drugs are used for the right diseases, the better use of genetically resistant crops and animals to reduce impacts of disease, the use of the epidemiology and economics to evaluate priorities for action, and, help design appropriate technology strategies and policies, pathways for delivery of effective services to the poor in different productive systems and regions.
A partnership of researchers can bring scattered efforts together and well organized down-stream force, to lead to impact, Research training and development integrated with high, medium and grassroots manpower development of critical discipline interfaces through collaborative network with well conceived targeted research and development agenda will strengthen the countries scientific and technological infrastructure in healthcare, food production and sustainable livelihoods. Research training however plays a crucial role in producing a strong and internationally recognized scientific base to deal with many aspects of diseases’ prevention and control now and in the future.
The challenge is to build up a national research capacity if teaching and appropriate researches are to be stimulated. It has become urgent to build an institutional centre to speak on behalf of the traditional healthcare industry for health providers, teachers, extensionists, doctors, communities, policy makers and researchers as a whole, to encourage lines of development and to establish a position of influence and assistance. Nothing less than a National Institute of Traditional Healthcare Systems (NITHS) could serve the purpose in any competitive way undertaking training and research programmes and human resource capacity building.
Given such an institute, in which direction should its teaching and research interest be directed? The true urgency of this problem appears to us to be in two related directions. On the one hand there is an urgent need to train providers, teachers in presenting to the community groups the materials which we already posses; on the other hand research needs to be directed towards the practical problems with which both sides are currently faced and future care and development.
Goal: Closer co-operation between different institutions and stakeholders for appropriate technologies and tools to be developed to sustained management of resources and help towards achievements of self-reliance

Priority areas for THIN and Partners:
•Capacity building at all levels; grassroots, technical, professional, scientific
•Effective collaboration between the relevant programmes and institutions
•Support public participation and gender equality at all levels in those areas where the resources and well being of the people are directly affected
•Promotion of rural innovations and inventions

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES (ICTS)

Ability to access, use and disseminate information is essential for effective multi-disciplinary research development.
The digital divide is the modern face of the gap between rich and poor countries in the availability of information. There are about 600 million internet users worldwide. However, only 6 million are in Africa, and of these, less than one million are in Kenya.
Digital technology affords many opportunities for information – poor countries leap and catch up. Communication is the key to the implementation of new ideas and research methods. The latest challenge has been in Kenya.
To build sustainable healthcare and agricultural production, conserve biodiversity and natural resources, improve operations and incomes, scientists researchers, technicians, professors and farmers need access to the latest information and instruction in new skills and technologies, and no one is left behind. Policy infrastructure, capacity building and information products and services appropriate to Kenya are all required.
Goal: Promoting effective access, use and dissemination of information with ICTS

Priority areas for THIN and Partners:
•Information products and resources
•Internet portals and gateways
•Capacity building and information management
•Information systems, strategies and policies
•Information impact assessment

IMPLEMENTATION

Partnership and Participation
THIN believes that effect development occurs through effective partnerships. Our work is undertaken through different forms of partnership, from informal working arrangements with traditional health workers, farmers, community groups, through to strategic alliances and commercial arrangements.
We adopt participatory approaches in our partnerships based on the premise that “everybody knows something, nobody knows everything”. A framework for participatory development involves finding ways of utilizing indigenous institutions, knowledge, physical resources and technology for local level and national development. It means starting from the things the target groups already know how to do and already organized for.
Our non-governmental status means we have particularly strong links with national research and extension institutions and agencies, but our partners also include educational organizations, non-governmental organizations and community based organizations, the private sector, development agencies, regional bodies and other international health and agricultural centres in policies, programme development, ideas, knowledge, resources and technology of both groups. Through working together our work is more relevant and has greater and more lasting impact.

In implementing our strategy, we aim to:-
•Develop strategic alliances with selected partners
•Establish THIN centres elsewhere in Africa
•Further integrate capacity building activities across our strategic themes
•Draw on our global networks of centres and expertise

FUNDING

THIN has no established supporter. It has no turn-over from sale of products and development contracts. The membership fees and voluntary contributions comprise a paltry income. Yet we must be responsive to needs, and be known for our quality and ability to deliver.
An essential element in planning and implementation of THIN projects and programmes is that THIN needs a solid foundation of long-term core support-independent of any direct funding for co-operative programmes or contractual work to give assurance that it can effectively accomplish its core activities in mission-oriented research, training and development activities, as well for co-operative programmes and contractual work that can be grafted on to it.

In implementing our strategies, we aim to:-
•Maintain high standards and provide value for money
•Be responsive to our funders needs
•Diversify and expand our funding support
•Investigate new income streams, for example through joint ventures in manufacture of pharmaceutical products, pesticides and sale of patents.

MONITORING AND EVALUATION

Ensuring our work is effective and that it will ultimately contribute to our vision requires a continuous process of monitoring and evaluation. We will continue to undertake this in the following ways:-

•Internal monitoring and evaluation through reviews, conferences
•THIN partners country meeting
•Project monitoring and evaluation by consultants
•Implementation of project activities either as part of the project or
•External reviews of THIN
I.ORIGINS AND GOALS OF THIN

Origins

1.In August 1989, eight Chief and Senior Science Technologists, working in different Government departments, National and International Research Institutions and Centres in Kenya agreed to form a group – “Intellectual 2000 (IN2000G); to provide a forum for exchange of ideas, knowledge, information as well as have joint publications.
The Organizations and Institutions represented included: National Museums of Kenya (NMK), Department of Public Health – Ministry of Health (DPH-MOH), Department of Biochemistry, University of Nairobi (U.O.N), Department of Zoology, Kenyatta University (KU), The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), Department of Botany, University of Nairobi (U.O.N), Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD) – the present International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).
2.After four years of successful collaboration, members of IN2000G met in July 1993, to consider whether there was a need for establishment of a model organization to showcase science-led development the group had been pushing for; and, if so where? This was as a result of first, the group having perceived the different needs of majority rural inhabitants where they conducted various research activities; secondly, the members of IN2000G had the technical competence and skills in different areas of science to make an impact.
3.The meeting accepted in principle that an organization be established in Kenya, and recommended that a national planning conference be convened as soon as possible to work out a detailed programme of the organizations’ work and governance. The planning conference met in Nairobi in November 1993 on the heels of IN2000G to expand its objectives and mandate and brought together 82 distinguished scientists, research administrators, policy makers and community representatives for 3 days of intensive discussions and field visits.
The planning conference was mandated to maneouver programmes based on the participation of local self-help groups, their aspirations and expectations; abilities to carry out those projects, as well as help upgrade the national development efforts; based on oriented objectives which could be sustained on the long-term and improve communication and co-operation of project teams, as well as provide indicators for project monitoring and evaluation. The said projects were to be able to be analyzed into means-ends relationships. Capacity building was to be an integral part of the projects. The approach was modified by the mandate of (In 2000G)that THIN should directly benefit the rural poor by including them in the development process. The planning conference essentially culminated in community development which encompassed projects in health, agriculture, natural resources development and use, education and research training.
4.The planning conference endorsed the idea of re-emphasizing the role of research and modern science in fighting diseases, ill-health and poverty. Through this approach, IN2000G would expand its impact and clout. It further recommended the need to make stronger links between research and control. Also IN2000G to look beyond the traditional research agenda of today, almost exclusively biomedical. Ill-health is not only a biomedical problem, particularly in combating the diseases of the poor.
To-day, we must accept that in health matters, we are dealing with a complexity of interdependent factors and diseases should not be seen in isolation. Social, economic and behavioral sciences have a major role to play. The conference focused on indigenous traditional and cultural systems because it is the key element of the local capital of the people of Kenya and Africa in general, assisting them in their struggle to improve and sustain their livelihoods. The planning conference recommended the formation of “Traditional Healthcare Integration Network (THIN) in Kenya and appointed an organizing committee to elaborate the detailed plan for the organization and the execution of the policy decisions reached by the conference as a whole.
5.Under the chairmanship of Dr. Andrew Chapya, the organizing committee met for the first time in Mid-January 1994. The detailed design of THIN as a non-governmental organization, its legal status, its organizational arrangements and schedule for effecting its establishment was agreed upon.
Parallel with these efforts were negotiations with the Government of Kenya to obtain certain privileges to facilitate the work of THIN, including provision of land, exemption from income and custom tax and duties, and the provision of work permit for international staff and volunteers. Similar efforts to reach an understanding with the universities, colleges and National Research centres, and advanced Research Institutions were initiated in the same year to get an understanding regarding collaborative efforts and net-working between THIN, the institutes and organizations, and these were fully reached in 1996.
On April 29, 1994, an application was filed with the National Non-Governmental Co-ordination Board to register THIN organization. Three weeks later, the interim Executive Board of THIN appeared to the security arm of the government for clearance. Traditional Healthcare Integration Network, a non-profit, non-political; development-oriented organization was registered in Kenya under the legal administrative framework of the NGO Act 1990, Section 10 Registration Number OP 218/051/9581/2148 in December 2001.

II. PURPOSE AND RATIONALE FOR THIN ORGANIZATION

6.At the time when THIN organization was conceived, a few thoughtful social scientists Goran Hyden and Paul Richards among them, had since the 80’s been calling our attention back to the peasants and the herders, suggesting that anyone interested in African Development must start with indigenous knowledge about production and survival that these communities have successfully adopted inspite of the vagaries of climate and the caprices of state policies. What had made them survive was peasant science; the African woman’s ability to forecast the weather, mix her planting, choose her grain and bean seed, intercrop her trees and legumes, milk her heifers and preserve her milk through a mix with charcoal and cows urine. We had been urged to turn around to African indigenous knowledge to re-launch us back on the development paths.
7.The 1960’s had been heedy days for discourses of African development. Many African countries advocated modernization plans predicted on generous packages of western countries, and by the end of the decade, radical pessimism had set in. It was surprisingly the state systems of Africa that in early 1980’s recognized their indigenous ineptitude and adopted the Lagos plan of action for a recovery programme at the United Nations in 1985. The World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) heard their cries and advocated Structural Adjustments Programmes (SAPS). “Modernization themes had failed African countries. So did Marxist and homegrown ujamaist and humanist shibboleths, so did dictatorships, military and “personal”. So where do we go from there?
8.Many local communities in many areas of Kenya benefit from generations of experiences of management of complex natural phenomena and systems that take advantages of that complexity. Consequently, many local organizations, communities and individuals themselves have a wealth of indigenous knowledge practices. However the knowledge practices are not documented effectively because communities and community based organizations lack the capacity to capture, document, validate and share them. There is tremendous depth of indigenous and cultural knowledge that spans the full range of design and management conditions.
9.Equally, in any African country, elders were always revered not only as figures of authority, but also as repositories of the community’s knowledge assets. They played a central role in the decision making in areas as diverse as community health, nutrition, ecological conservation and natural resources management.
That however is not the case in most African Societies to-day. The role of elders and experts has gradually been replaced by collective institutions and systems that reflect an entirely new paradigm in decision making and in which the value of traditional knowledge practices are ignored. Although local people have developed a wealth of empirical knowledge for their sustainability, much valuable information can be lost or distorted whenever the owner of the information dies without revealing it orally, his knowledge to the offspring or friend. There is an urgent need to record, disseminate this information before it is lost for posterity.
10.Many of these traditions have survived because they being comfort and survival, even though they are not based on facts or truth. So it is realized that in order to understand the traditions at various points, we need to apply science and technology in order to undermine traditional assumptions and that may prove something. Even so, it was felt strongly that the very process of looking at traditional assumptions has some value in itself, and that when the dust settles it may allow all of us to experience and see health issues, medicare and overall development more clearly than before.
11.Understanding local knowledge systems can help in identifying the needs of the communities in other ways because most of the knowledge systems are empirical, and allows extension and education to be targeted accordingly. In this way, useful information and techniques can be best flow from the scientific community to the rural populations – once we know what they already know and what else might be most useful.
Great emphasis is laid on the existing scientific and technological knowledge from “outside” to the solution of people’s economic and social problems. Indeed science is thought of very much in terms of a tool. However, the concept of science as a modernizing tool immediately raises a number of important issues:-
(i)What is the cultural framework of the society
(ii)Have they an educational programme to match the heavy, high multi-echelon manpower requirements that a modern industrialized country demands?
(iii)Is it valid to believe that only the technological results of science are sufficient to a developing country like ours?
(iv)What should be our priorities in research?
12. We need to know how knowledge and comprehension functioned. Do some of the African beliefs and explanations of occurrence and transactions have a scientific base? Answers to these questions could help us in integration of indigenous and cultural concepts, knowledge and forms with modern science and technology. The problem with most countries that are still recovering from the effects of nineteenth and twentieth century colonization is lack of “local science” framework from which we can assess our scientific traditions. For example, although many of our people are accepting “miti-shamba” (Swahili for herbal medicines) in Kenya and in many African countries as an alternative medical and health practice, we have yet to identify and document the local science frameworks that govern these practices. Evidence from economic history has shown that the industrialized countries broke from the bondage of poverty, largely trough the use of science and technological innovations. However, technological change is not deterministic. Its evolution can be governed to achieve certain goals.
13. The better way to go about this would be to seek ways of merging traditional and modern technologies through cross-cutting science. Because the economies of modern states are too integral to the world economy to permit an exclusive approach to traditional knowledge alone. Even that being the case, it would be unwise and rather difficult to apply modern technology to all our problems no matter its merits. For example, by applying knowledge globally (e.g. western-based technologies in tropical regions) instead of considering locally and empirically developed measures, mismanagement in development programmes is predictable. But on the other hand, while studying the relationship between a specific cultural group and their conditions and environment in a specific geographical zone, new findings can be of global importance for the benefit of local people and other countries in terms of development, conservation and education.

III. THE ROLE OF TRADITIONAL AND CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE IN DEVELOPMENT
14. Unfortunately few areas are effervescent in ideas as development. Social and political experts have taken several pot-shots at the established narrative about growth and development in societies, particularly the story of the industrial revolution and the supposed lessons it has for poor countries that are desperately struggling to climb the development ladder. The crucial change-factors were cultural attributes, that had taken root in countries such as England and other European societies, including Asia, had some of these attributes that later served them well. But other societies lack them to this day. Accordingly, several development experts and historians do not see how poor societies can climb out of poverty in the period suggested by development practitioners without the tenets of the past.
15. There is an increasing appreciation of the advantages of integrating science and technology to traditional and cultural knowledge practices to yield mutually beneficial results from development projects. Because traditional and cultural knowledge is localized and adopted to the social and cultural settings of different Kenyan communities, this may represent a useful linkage between these communities and the modern scientific and technological models of development.
16. Elderly men and women are dying everyday in rural Kenya with the secrets of how to tap the agricultural, medicinal and nutritional value of plants and other natural resources for food, medicines, pesticides, how to predict weather patterns on which our agriculture depends, yet everyday many people are perishing in homes and hospitals for lack of treatment. Endemic diseases, malnutrition, micronutrient deficiency and poverty are a matter of concern. And, children, men and women are severely anaemic, malnourished weak, bony and wasted. The interaction between hunger and diseases results in being anaemic, having mental disorders, severe forms of cataract and poor vision.
17. Inhabitants of rural areas live in areas of great botanic diversity. As farmers, occasional gatherers, hunters and fishermen have an intimate relationship with and detailed knowledge of their natural environment. In daily subsistence and in response to illness and hunger, plants and other biodiversity play a major role. Historically and to the present time, selection guided criteria, emperism and special needs has led to their native traditional library and diets. All plant and natural resources use depends on factors such as climate, biodiversity and nutritional needs (for calories, vitamins and rare elements) traditional medicinal plants become culturally important due to demonstrated medical efficacy as perceived in a specific culture. Extracting traditional and cultural knowledge from such inhabitants and communities and validating it through cross-cutting science and technology may be useful in improving health, food production and processing, large scale conservation of biodiversity and natural resources and other areas of life.

IV. PRIMARY HEALTHCARE AS A DEVELOPMENT IMPARATIVE
18. It is now realized that for purposes of rigorous development, a healthy labour force and manpower is an essential pre-requisite to economic expansion, since the levels of productivity are related to the health of the workers. The quality of the labour force is also important and that will depend on the basic characteristics of the people, their health status, energy, adaptability, inventiveness, judgment and ability to organize themselves and co-operate in production together with skills they acquired through education and training.
People have to be physically fit in order to engage in any productive work. A sick or malnourished individual or community would not be able to achieve higher productivity levels even if all other resources are available. People can tolerate deprivation of some luxuries in life but not with health, food and access to drinking water and other basics of life.
19. Despite the controversies of methodology, there is a clear evidence of the linkage between economic growth and nutrition. Increases in economic growth leads to increased public and private spending on health and education and on the quality and quantity of food consumed. Improved nutrition feeds back into economic growth, through improvements in human capital formation and productivity. This implies that while economic growth is necessary for improved nutrition, as well as public as well as individual, health is critical for long-term economic growth and development.
20. Development on the other hand is concerned with the total person, his economic, social, political, physical, physiological development. The achievement of sound physical and mental well-being also relies on the integration of basic services, foodstuffs, water, sanitation, medicines, and a feeling of mental, social and spiritual well-being. Development therefore becomes more than capacity to produce a substantial amount of goods and services. Indeed the health status of a person and community does not depend only or even primarily on the availability of health services, but also upon interaction with the physical, biological and social environments.
21. Health plays a major role in facilitating development, and health is not a problem of survival, but also of poverty and development, inseparably linked to socio economic and cultural development. And remains the best criteria for assessing the quality of development in a country. That is why thoughtful planners are planning development around health.
V. PURPOSE FOR THIN
22. To work with its partners at the dynamic interfaces of science and technology to refine traditional and cultural knowledge practices for poverty reduction and healthy livelihoods. To move upstream to downstream research to ensure that health management strategies and technologies are workable in local contexts by local communities, and to clearly incorporate multi-sector, multi-action education and communication.
VI. EVOLUTION OF MANDATE AND PROGRAMMES SINCE INCEPTION
23. At the very beginning, THIN did not only have an educational aim, it also had a primary interest in the pursuit of fundamental research in health systems and related disciplines, in the discovery of new knowledge that might lead to the design of novel methods of health management and development, and, in the encouragement and capacity building of young scientific and technological community that would plough their skills and knowledge in those fields of work and perpetuate those activities.
24. THIN recognizes that there are important applied problems in the health management of vectors of human tropical diseases, the pests and vectors of livestock diseases and the food crops. But also recognizes that in several crucial cases these applied problems cannot be satisfactorily approached without the participation of the target groups and without further basic knowledge.
Indeed the target health issues that THIN has chosen for its priority attack are all health issues that have already received considerable national, regional and international attention, and many of these have been the subject of practical eradication and control programmes on an extensive scale over the past several decades. If these were simple, direct methods for the control and management of these important development issues they would have been found in that time and put in operation.
25. THIN believes that, first, increased participation and efficiency in medical as well as health services in the country can be delivered at a lowered cost through the deliberate pattern of increasing integrated health care programmes aimed at solutions of national health and development problems, and, any contribution of these measures might produce more stable and/or higher health and protection outcomes to many people.
Secondly, through community based systems and providing education and training at all levels, the country can be assured of better sustainable healthcare and development. The challenge is to develop and improve technologies based on local resources and management systems, relatively unknown to “formal health research” that will produce a wide range of products and services applicable across the communities in a multitude of environments and circumstances
26. THIN recalls that the Kenyan MEDICAL system was adopted based on the traditional British pattern of health services. This was due to the close relations which have been developed between Kenya and Britain in the past, dating the days Kenya was a colony of Britain. Similar health programmes have been developed in other countries of Africa which were former colonies of Britain. The system has served the all important objective and background of well-tested scientific and professional traditions. On the other hand, it cannot be expected to serve the long-term function of guiding developmental change, whose professional character must be oriented towards the health service needs of the immediate environment of Kenya.
Several unique factors impress themselves on the Health historian who tries to evaluate the story of the medical services in Kenya and East Africa from their early start. He cannot over look the direction given to the medical services by the abrupt transformation of an agrarian and tribal African Society into a technologically oriented contemporary social structure – contrary to the classical pattern of western countries, where the transition to modernity took place after the industrial and scientific revolutions.
27. There are other aspects equally interesting in the development of East African Medicine and public health. A medical historian would be puzzled by the incongruity of the task that confronted medical administrators, native-affairs specialists, and physicians in government service. Whatever their training and background, once they were in East Africa, they had to do more than practice their profession. More significantly, gloomy predictions about medical developments were made during the period of transition from colonial status to independence. “How could poor countries with an insufficient professional staff and with only a small number of medical students in training at the time of independence keep up a minimum curative and preventive work”? Would East African medicine decline?
Among the problems that have emerged are:-
(i) Increasing pressure on public sector financial resources not only for expanding the health facilities and services, but also in responding to increasing demands from high population growth rate;
(ii) An inadequate spatial distribution of health services due to low community participation in many areas and the difficult physical environments obtaining especially in the arid and semi-arid areas;
(iii) A low level of hospital operational efficiency, epitomized by a more than 100 per cent bed-occupancy rate, co-existing with the high cost per in-patient per day;
(iv) Shortage of manpower and management expertise for the running of health services;
(v) Lack of proper public information and education which would guide the people themselves to develop competence in meeting the basic requirements of good health and development.
There is increased awareness of health needs in Kenya as well as an increased need to produce the kind of health personnel who will effectively deliver healthcare in the rural areas where the majority 90% of the population live. In view of the fact that the present basic systems of medicine and health services have been found to need modification in the very country in which they were adopted, it would seem that the need is even greater to modify them in the country like Kenya in order to suit them to the needs of the health and development of all the people.
VII. TRADITIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS
28. Western medicine and healthcare is not introduced in a vacuum. Poor households have deviced their livelihood strategies depending on their asset base and despite risks they face, but conditioned by the structures (public, civil) private sector and processes (public, legislation, institutions, culture) under which they operate.
The poor in the country, 60% of the population have limited access to preventive and curative treatment, animal breeding services, veterinary drugs and advice. In many cases, appropriate control technologies do not exist in part because funding bodies in developed countries do not even consider research into the management of diseases that occur outside their boundaries. Financial incentives for technology development and application by international pharmaceutical industries are severely limited. Thus, in the face of inadequacies displayed in the western medical and health systems, 80% of the population has relied on traditional and indigenous systems of healthcare.
29. Traditional indigenous healthcare exists everywhere in Kenyan communities. It is a product of social institutions and cultural traditions that have evolved over many centuries to enhance health. Traditional indigenous healthcare endeavours to meet health needs in the historical geographical and cultural context in which it is placed.
The positive side of traditional medicine and healthcare is that it covers common symptoms and disease syndromes typical of the socio-economic status of the country, such as diarrhea, dysentery, gastro intestinal disturbances, respiratory diseases and infections from urethritis to conjunctivitis. It is estimated that about 80% of the Kenyan population use traditional medicine and healthcare for themselves, their animals, crops and other products. In this regard, traditional healthcare is the poor’s livelihood, but it has the handicap of being stagnant and does not utilize the benefits of modern science, whether orally transmitted or resulting from personal experiences runs the risk of being lost, just as Kenya is disclosing itself to the world and to history.
30. Traditional healers and midwives, the main source of health workers are outstanding persons, accepted and recognized members of the community in which they provide healthcare by using herbal substances and, to a lesser degree, animal and mineral substances. They live and work in rural areas where and when western primary healthcare is absent. The herbalists and midwives are originally dependant on their material and inspiration in the plants growing in their surroundings.
For almost every ethnic group, there exists a host of medicinal and food plants capable of treating common symptoms or disease syndromes – some plants with a wide range of tolerance for a number of ecological limiting factors (such as humidity and temperature) are found in different areas of Kenya and are used for the same pharmacological function but not always with the same therapeutic effect. Moreover, many plants (and their parts thereof, named drugs) are used as panaceas, various uses are made of the same plant and among different ethnics; the same plants are often prescribed for very different purposes, even opposite one. This being so because with the diverse cultural backgrounds of the ethnic groups in Kenya, traditional values vary greatly from group to group.
31. The negative sides of traditional medicine and health systems are:
(i) Imprecise diagnosis
(ii) Symptomatic and not etiological therapy
(iii) Lack of precision in dosage form
(iv) The possibility of intoxication and sometimes
(v) The practice of sorcery and quackery
(vi) Inadequate regimes for the protection of intellectual property rights
The systems of traditional medicine and healthcare are sometimes integrated with religion, traditions and beliefs on life, death and disease. Animism and fetishism therapy is integrated into cosmological and social fabric, dosages and preparations of droughts depend on codified rules, association of figures, metaphysical affinities. The efficacy of draughts is sometimes granted by magic words, based on the cultural, social and religious background, and by methods based on knowledge, attitudes and beliefs regarding physical, mental and social welfare, disease and disability.
32. Inspite of these negative aspects, traditional medicine and healthcare remains a rich cultural heritage whose potential is not always fully known and utilized because of technical, ideological and political constraints.
Due to rapid population growth rate, diminishing natural resources base and national income, cuts in foreign aid and the search for effective treatment for common diseases, such as malaria and opportunistic infections associated with HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis are driving renewed policy interest in traditional medicine and healthcare in Kenya. The Kenya Government has fully recognized traditional health practices and systems as doing and delivering essential services and wishes to incorporate it into National Health Delivery Systems and Programmes (NHDSP), including insurance, natural medicines, traditional foods, traditional health practitioners and other health workers at all levels of education.
Shaping of programmes
33. THIN set itself a double mission. Firstly, it set itself to undertake high-quality research in several critical aspects of healthcare and development, which would lead to the design of novel methods for the control and management of disease pests and vectors, ill-health, in a long-range, selective manner within an acceptable socio-economic and ecological framework. Secondly, it set itself the task of carrying out high-level scientific and technical training of young gifted scientists and technicians, community practitioners in the field of health. It was the vision of THINs founders that such research training in development oriented field of fundamental concern would foster the growth of a young scientific and technical community in Kenya and other developing countries within an appropriate intellectual framework.
34. The approach THIN has taken is one of open strategy-not a patchwork approach. For each target programme, THIN is exploring several lines of study which hold promise as novel avenues for health management, while not eschewing short-term strategies of control; It has not felt it compelling to devote its best endeavours to fire fighting efforts in order to stem the tide of flushes of ill-health and disease inflictions.
35. A principal driving force behind the genesis of THIN was to bring together within a single intellectual environment a multiplicity of disciplines, many of which were not at the time associated with conventional health research, in an attempt to solve major health management problems without already known drawbacks of classical approached to ill-health and disease control.
An essential step in the establishment of THIN consequently was to ensure that, at an early stage, experienced scientists and members of the Board of Directors in diverse disciplines that include medicine, agriculture, animal sciences, ecology, natural products chemistry taxonomy, entomology, behavior and several others including religions were appointed, all targeting their skills into a few difficult but carefully selected major health problems. The majority of these disciplines were not flourishing adequately in the country and other developing countries of the world; it was therefore essential to ensure that THIN was plugged into a network of advanced laboratories in these disciplines.
36. THIN also invented a mechanism to give this assurance by appointing Research consultants for its activities. These are leading world re-known scientists in their own disciplines, to be appointed for honorary or volunteer 3-4 year periods, and visit THIN frequently to help the Executive Director in guiding the work of the research and technical staff; and offering at the same time their own laboratories and facilities as a watering place for the eager THIN scientists and technologists.
37. THIN organization has integrated but functional programmes designed in partnership participation of local people, supporting their empowerment and development, using healthcare strategies as a positive receptacle for them because healthcare permeates every aspect of life. By allowing all programmes to develop separately, one cannot achieve a balanced delivery system at a cost one can afford.
THIN believes that development should be a united whole and any short-term trade-offs should be made good as early as possible, especially where health is concerned. The importance of intersectional action is explained by the interdependence of basic needs; the satisfaction of one need may strengthen peoples capacity to satisfy the other needs, and even if the need remains unsatisfied, the enjoyment of life may suffer. Such interaction does not exclusively affect health goals, but influences all human potential.
38. THINS holistic and development projects meet not only health related needs but also to improve income, farm produce, and often social and cultural needs and other measurable quality of life indicators in the project areas; to increase local demand and control of natural resources, delivery systems and agricultural resource management, health, maternal and child mortality, education, research and training. These projections define eight strategic themes essential to the achievement of these purposes:-
(i) Reduced endemic and water-borne diseases
(ii) Improved household food production and consumption
(iii) Improved income generating opportunities for poor farmers, landless, labourers, occupational castes and women
(iv) Strengthened capacity of traditional as well as conventional health workers, subject matter specialists, technologists, scientists, doctors, stewards of biodiversity and other local organizations to carry out local and national efforts
(v) Increased partnerships and networks
(vi) Increased essential drugs, prevention and control health services
(vii) Increased rural extension work and reforms in village power structures
39. THIN projects ease the burdens starting with the children and extending to benefit their families and neighbours. With endemic and water borne diseases cured, clean water to drink, their siblings will grow strong; will be able to go to school. Their parents will have time and strength to engage in new and exciting engagements such as improved farming technologies and other health related businesses. THIN recognizes the need to act not only of improved healthcare but indications are that in order to make progress against poverty, improved health delivery systems, effective environmental management, conservation of biodiversity and other social changes, the people should be technologically capable of solving the problems of healthcare, food, basic medicines, employment, promoting the traditional bonds of solidarity that have exited from time immemorial and giving science and education a significant meaning. THINS projects are such that it concentrates all its resources in inter disciplinary activities over a period, thus ensuring immediate tangible results from the investments.
VIII. COLLABORATION, PARTICIPATION, PARTNERSHIPS AND NETWORKING
40. THIN recognizes that delivery of health services and systems is a major opportunity for increasing multisectoral collaboration with ministries, departments, national extension and educational agencies, non-governmental and community based organizations, the private sector, regional bodies and the International Research and Development centres.
A framework of participatory development involving finding ways of partnerships and networking, involving indigenous institutions, knowledge, physical resources, and technologies for local and national development are in place. THIN has started with what the target groups already know how to do and already organized for. The role of outside knowledge and technology is to help development through improving productive capacities and the socio-economic structures on which development hinges. In this way THIN believes that self-reliance rather than dependence will result. THIN is also concerned that the key to poverty reduction can be found in the resourcefulness of the poor themselves, and in return will safeguard their dignity.

IX. PARTNERSHIPS
41. THIN brings together diverse partners from bench researchers to disease control programmes personnel with the dual goals of developing a sustainable agenda of countrywide research and training; to find better tools and methods to combat diseases, ill-health, hunger and poverty. Research and knowledge is the solid foundation upon which the partnerships are built. THIN approach to partnerships is to provide a broad platform and create an everlasting environment for a variety of actors to play their roles.
42. It is a massive task to amalgamate healthcare systems in a country like Kenya that is made more difficult by the paucity of information concerning health and disease in many parts of the country; particularly when information as to social and cultural developments and disease prevalence is almost completely lacking. This is largely because healthcare in intertwined with other sectors, such as human resource and infrastructure development, health workers and practitioners, farmers and their co-operatives, fertilizers, pesticides, drugs, policy and property rights among others. Although THINS mandate is research and training, the integration and implementation of healthcare systems goes beyond this development. This is where complementary activities with partners who address the link between research and development are very important to THIN.
43. The cycle of disease, ill-health, hunger and poverty can be broken with application of cutting-edge science and technology to ensure reduction in disease incidences, nutritional and food security, employment creation and overall development. THIN is playing a vital role in encouraging advanced research and development institutions to collaborate in technology development, human resources, capacity building, technology transfer and policy research that will provide livelihood options for the millions caught in the consuming web of ill-health, hunger and poverty.
44. THINS work is undertaken through different partnerships, ranging from informal arrangements to draft model agreements and contract documents. Through collaboration partnerships and networking, THIN promotes sharing of information, expert knowledge and co-working in order to promote common objectives, solve problems and meet and satisfy the expectations of the people. Through exchange of experiences and co-working, THINS work is made more relevant and has greater and more lasting impact through:_
(i) Improving access to resources
(ii) Reducing vulnerability and
(iii) Making markets work for the poor; the voiceless and disadvantaged
THIN has adopted participatory approached to partnerships based on the premise that everybody knows something, nobody knows everything.
X. NETWORKING
45. THIN is committed to networking for programme development, to ensure a mechanism through which we can access information, knowledge, ideas and insights into the latest professional thinking and provide an environment in which people can learn from others who have already encountered situations that are new to us, to give contacts which enable individuals and organizations to bench-mark themselves, offer professional visibility, exposure and lead to real opportunities. THIN finds it exciting and rewarding as individuals in organizations and outside have many unique skills and experiences which are not well advertised. Some of these experiences are related to their professional role, others are personal. It is amazing what talents we can unearth when we network.
46. When THIN became functional as a non-governmental, non-profit, development oriented organization in December 2001, it started with a considerable list of research programmes it wanted to initiate:
• Human health and welfare
• Food and nutrition
• Livestock health and productivity
• Plant health management
• Capacity and institutional management
• Community participation
47. It was soon realized that this manner of working on health problems would probably lead to scientific findings unrelated to the original problems that were to be solved. At the 2003 Annual Board of Directors meeting – a feature of THINS internal review system for programmes, it was decided that THIN should identify certain major “international health issues” and designate them “target core programmes”. Soon after that, the Board of Directors agreed on the following functional core programmes. It was a basic philosophy of THIN that the organization must concentrate its education, training and technology development efforts into a few difficult but well selected programmes of research, which would have world-wide impact on tropical health and disease situation.
48. THIN after explaratory word and wide discussions adopted the following research programmes as forming its research and training activities:-
• Human health and welfare
• Small holder Agriculture
• Livestock health productivity
• Environmental health
• Conservation and sustainable utilization of biodiversity and natural resources
The THIN Board later felt that certain major impact areas were worthy of concentrated research by THIN and partners as frontier areas which might well yield important findings critical for tropical health research and management. Two of these important areas which are receiving a great deal of attention fro THIN and partners are:-
• Medicinal ethnobotany
Kenyan communities are favoured by contrasted biodiversity of tropical nature. There is little doubt that this tropical flora, which are constantly exposed to attack by various parasites, such as viruses, bacteria, protozoa’s, fungi and insects, are confronted with much harsher conditions for survival than their temperate counterparts. This necessarily leads to efficient built-in defense mechanisms and it is presumably for this reason that tropical flora offer a rich and intriguing sources of isolating natural products possessing medicinal or pesticidal or pharmacological properties.
• Ethno databases
Although people have developed a wealth of empirical knowledge on local plants and biodiversity, much valuable information can be lost or distorted whenever the owner of the information of Bwana Mganga (medicine man) dies without revealing his knowledge to his offspring. Traditionally he only passes on his knowledge to his first-born son or daughter incase of a wife, but occasionally he might give some information to a trustworthy person. This knowledge needs to collated, strangulated, packaged and documented for posterity.
Both these approaches – 5 core programmes and a few restricted impact areas have been highly successful in terms of advances THIN has made in 6-short years since its rudimentary functional state in 2002.
At the present, the five fields enumerated above form the major priorities of THIN. As the problems get solved, the Board of Directors, through its Research and Training committee, will advise on new priorities. For the immediate present, however, the highest impetus is being given to those projects that can find a sizeable critical mass in research and extension, e.g. conservation and sustainable utilization of biodiversity and natural resources; secondly, to those which are still to be consolidated. Education, training and research weaver across all the programmes through implementation, partnerships and networking. Also major national initiatives that assist cultural organizations or groups to plan far, research and/or implement new strategies for institutional sustainability, and that are designed to have broad impact on a field or discipline. And by invitation only, programmes that impove the quality and dissemination of arts criticism, arts policy research, cultural planning, the use of new communication technologies and other forums of public discourse in the arts.
Goal: To promote greater public understanding of the role of culture and arts in society
XI. TRAINING OBJECTIVES
49. The Training needs in Kenya and other African countries in the field of health and development is over-whelming. Lack of health research capacity, especially among the control personnel is major stumbling block to execution of health research and agenda. THINS position in a tropical developing world provides a base to increase its training of scientific leadership in health sciences and development. The requirements are physical facilities, regular fellowships, funding and an established management and training cadre. Respectfully, THIN was launched with no staff complement, no physical facilities (in terms of space, equipment, vehicles and money). THINS research training experiences and product development is expected to give substantial momentum to the drive to develop and carry out significant and practical countrywide research agenda.
50. However, the Board of Directors has taken these objectives seriously and as THINS’ successes on training becomes more obvious. THIN had devised a stronger base for training to provide collaboration’s and synergy between research training and implementation. The training programmes of THIN are closely linked with those of educational institutions and systems in Kenya and East Africa. THIN has adopted a varied system of training to achieve a number of objectives.
(i) Research Associate-ship (RA)
These are granted at post-doctoral level and permit gifted young scientists from developing and developed countries with appointments in their academic or research institutions to come and work at THIN for periods of 3-6 months every year for a period of three (3) years. The appointees work on problems selected from THIN core programmes. The training they get is by assimilation, supervised by a visiting scientist or consultant from a partner institution of THIN. This is an answer to the problem of converting, especially the training of developing countries scientists to work on problems relevant to their environment, and, for those in developed countries, to increase their horizons in their knowledge base.
(ii) Post-doctoral Associate-ship (PDA)
Is available to young scientists worldwide, who can get funding on a competitive basis to work on problems selected from THIN core programmes under the supervision of his/her supervisor and a relevant THIN consultant.

(iii) Professional Technical Training (PTT)
These trainings are carried out at THIN organization (for both THIN and non-THIN staff) at the polytechnic or national institution of East Africa (for THIN staff) and abroad in specialized laboratories (for THIN staff). This is a vital service for research institutions in most developing countries.
(iv) Study Workshops (SWS)
Are sponsored by THIN from time to time to develop country specific operational research agendas of field and laboratory experts in particular problem areas. This is a powerful tool for increasing research capacities – in addition to being an excellent mechanism for disseminating THIN findings to the applied scientists and extensionists and the communities themselves.
(v) The Science Students Fellowship (SSF)
Is a scheme in which every year 10-15 high school and pre-university graduates are selected to undergo a 6 months research experience at the THIN work station. The objective is to motivate the students to pursue science based careers when the subsequently join the universities and training institutions.
(vi) Community based organizations’ Training (COBOT)
Is sponsored by THIN, to increase in quality and quantity, and geared towards resolving local and national problems, and, is adopted to the contents of trainings of realities of the resource poor, traditional health workers, innovators among others. However, since many agencies and development organizations had worked in some of the areas for decades, THIN is not about the duplicate and fragment their efforts but supplement the knowledge base and improve the practices.
(vii) Global Exchange Programmes (GEP)
In order to keep THINS scientific and technical staff at the frontier of their own disciplines, visiting scientists and consultants visit to help direct the scientific and technical fraternity. At the same time as opportunities arise, THIN research staff visit the institutions and laboratories or facilities of visiting scientists, collaborators and consultants and other advanced laboratories go give seminars and have discussions with the scientific and technical groups there. This double-edged system has to ensure that the THIN staffs are very much aware of the new advances and trends in their sciences and also able to renovate their approaches periodically.
51. Training, however efficient the basic training is, THIN does not consider it an end. Continuing education for serving personnel is necessary and research-training are encouraged, particularly in integrated courses that form post-basic courses and training to provide greater depth in relevant fields. Some of those personnel require refresher courses; some may need seminars-on-off.
52. Continuing education and training for people in the service need not be wholly the responsibility of a training institution. The international, national, private and non-governmental organizations administer orientational applied research through projects. The trainees can come together every year in order to share the knowledge and experiences gained on the line of duty. This will form a strong team of field officers who provide integrated services to their communities. This function will support the training component through monitoring and evaluation as well as carrying out training needs assessments. Those trained are to serve in various disciplines, building capacity for the institution which support programmes and also undertake various consulting arrangement
XII. ACHIEVEMENT TO-DATE AND LINKAGES WITH OTHER INSTITUTIONS
53. The first 6 years of THINS rudimentary functional life can be truly regarded as a testing period for the THIN model. THIN had incorporated into its organization and objectives so many novel features – its appointment of Board of Directors, visiting scientists and consultants, its training of young scientists and technologists insitu, its insistence on concentrating on the removal of basic roadblocks of scientific and technical ignorance to solving health management and development problems on a long-range time horizon, its multi-disciplinary approach to a developing country poverty reduction – that there was need to test the model before establishing the organization in a classical manner.
54. Although THIN organization has been registered for the last eight (8) years now, we have had many constraints and roadblocks in our progress. Some stem from the nature of the organization and what it stands for. Some are internally generated. THIN was launched with no administrative support, no physical facilities and no staff complement. All of THINS budget and support has come from voluntary contributions in terms of labour, materials, facilities which are undesignated. Members of the Board have been committed to implementing some projects with their own resources. The Executive Director is a volunteer for THIN, since he receives only allowances.

ACHIEVEMENTS IN TRAINING
55. THIN has made some outstanding achievements in research training despite the above hurdles. The first four (4) years have been a pioneering feet and an exhilarating experience for all those concerned with THIN. The model has proved virile and productive. The next phase, 2009-2014 will be concerned with giving supportive substance to THIN as a fully fledged research and development organization; the five coming years will be concerned with mobilizing supporters to put buildings around staff, in placing necessary equipment into their hands, putting vehicles under them in order to carry out field studies more effectively, and asking supporters to chip in to have staff complement.
56. During the period 2003-2008, THIN has carried out participatory research, training and education projects in Nyanza, Western and Rift-Valley provinces of Kenya. Particularly western province and some parts of Nyanza and some parts of Rift Valley are the most densely populated region in rural Africa. Despite being blessed with plentiful rainfall, decades of intense agricultural production have severely depleted soil fertility in the region and soil erosion is a major problem. There is a crisis of low food production in the small holder farms in these areas, coupled with high levels of poverty, infections and infestations and HIV/AIDS. While many organizations have worked in the area for decades, there have been much duplication and fragmentation efforts.

57. IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES
A number of unanticipated implementation problems and challenges undercut the THIN projects during this period; lack of funds, lack of teachers, advisors, supervisors leading to limited control and ability to maintain momentum. The projects suffered to some extent through an under-estimation of efforts required to complete them, and particularly it became difficult to develop village development work in the rural areas, who need a broad based set of skills and motivations including willingness (rare among educated Kenyans) to work in rural areas. Longer training courses were required than were ever expected, and transporting participants and their leaders, and lack of supplies. Broad projects intended to have nationwide impacts needed sufficient resources to achieve them.
58. LESSONS LEARNT
THIN and partners learnt that all the villagers needed change. They need technical knowledge and organizational assistance to village development workers, and on the complexity of constraints affecting villagers’ decision making, and, the need for other incentives, particularly grants-in-aid and technical supervision for self-help projects.
We have made what we consider sound strategies and identified what resources we really require to give those strategies a push in the right direction. We need to persuade the medical and agricultural schools to join the groups and swell the ranks of those trying to provide health education, which is relevant to the attainment of health for all. We need learning materials for community health workers in local languages, diagnostic instruments and flow-charts for learning and practical use. We need health development centres and patient support centres to maintain our health research and development strategies.
59. Research and Training Achievements
• Population covered 320,000
• Community self help groups 1790
• Village centres covered 7160
• Primary schools 9178
• Secondary schools 4750
• Youth centres 3810
• High value medicinal and fodder
Crops planted on peoples farms 2.8m*
• Plants screened for pharmacological testing 1,500
*THIN and Community partners worn a Gold-Award from Total-Echo challenge Initiative in 2004.
Capacity to Accept Contract Work
60. THIN has to still consolidate its own core research and development programmes and the manpower required to meet the programmes’ objectives. It has no facilities for the challenges facing it. It would therefore be inappropriate for THIN to accept, at this time, contract work.
However, it is clear that the establishment of a secure basis of the capacity within THIN to carry out the programmes mentioned in paragraphs interalia would put the organization in a position to undertake specific related work on request as an extension of its core programmes under suitable contract arrangements with other scientific and development institutions. It is accepted that the cooperating institutions will want to be kept completely abreast of the scientific and technological advances THIN is making in the relevant programmes, and that THIN will collaborate with the institutions in fashioning out the discoveries into health management systems when appropriate; the capacity of THIN to operate in these fields must therefore be assured without dependence on fluctuating revenue from such contracts in these areas as may be offered to THIN and which THIN may find appropriate to accept
XIII. THE CURRENT STRUCTURE OF THE GOVERNANCE OF THIN
61. The Chief mandate of THIN is participatory research and training; the arrangements that have been developed for the management and administration of THIN are those that are thought to be best suited to support this mandate and to guarantee its success in the historical and environmental context within which the organization has been established.
The THIN Organization
62. The THIN organization derives its legal status from its registration under the Kenyan Laws as a non-governmental, non-profit organization. Its legal obligations are discharged by the members of the Board, meeting at least three times a year including an annual general meeting and receiving a financial statement, the Auditors report, a report of the organizations activities and then electing its members, a third of whose members retire every year. The statute allows it to have nine (9) members. The members of the Board posses a wide range of expertise in health, agriculture, education and in developing questions from a wide variety of scientific standpoints, in science policy, research and development, training among others.
63. Board Meetings
The Board normally meets quarterly each year for scheduled meetings and other occasions to deal with specific matters that require attention between scheduled meetings. Scheduled meetings include annual strategic reviews, review of quality and performance and monitoring of activities and operational issues. The Board carries out certain of its duties by delegation to Board Committees from time to time. These committees meet and make recommendations to the Board on issues delegated to them. The committees operate under “Terms of Reference” approved by the Board and their duties extend across the group. The committees include the Executive Committee Research and Training, Financial and Administration.
Administration and Management
64.The Executive Director is the Chief Executive and Scientific officer of the organization. He is the agent of the Board to ensure that the policy and mandate of the organization is carried out. He sits on the Board as a full member. Under him are the positions of Deputies in Research, Administration and Finance; and Training, Communication who assist him in implementing the programme of work.

XIV. THE THIN MANDATE

65.The prime concerns of THIN are to refine and make social and economic senses out of traditional and cultural practices through cross-cutting science and technology.
Within this mandate, the THINS principal objectives are to:-
•Undertake fundamental and applied research on selected health and development issues in order to study their feasibility, their constraints and their possible application of this knowledge to the problems on integrated health delivery systems as well as the beneficial use of biodiversity and other natural resources;
•Establish research co-operation with key partners, international research centres and advanced institutions through the world, and with national programmes and local communities to facilitate research on the testing and demonstration of health promoting and development strategies;
•Provide local level and advanced training in research methods and techniques for doctoral, postdoctoral, diploma and research experience as well as on health delivery strategies;
•Provide an internal forum for accumulation, discussion and dissemination of scientific knowledge through seminars, conferences, training, workshops, symposia and establishment of information, communication technologies and pathways;
•Promote the growth of the scientific and technological communities in Kenya and other developing countries, both by its activities and its special relationships with research institutions, universities, specialized agencies and other non-governmental organizations.

XV. STRATEGIC PRINCIPLES, RESEARCH PRIORITIES, QUALITY CONTROL AND OUTPUT

66.Strategic planning is a key factor in the continued success of THIN. THIN has been planned to operate on a five year planning cycle, in conjunction with Board of Director’s resolution.
Planning Process
67.Based on the policy discussions of the Board of Directors, the management (the Executive Director, the Chairman and the Treasurer) invites the Deputy Directors and Senior Programme leaders as well as Divisional Managers to participate in strategic planning (“bottom-up” planning process). The Deputy Directors and Divisional Managers are required:-
(i)To review with their staff, the primary goals of their programmes, to state their achievements during the previous cycle and to state activities planned for the next cycle, including scientific collaboration.
(ii)To indicate human and financial resources needed to achieve these goals.
(iii)And, to consider the effects of any financial constraints on these activities.
These proposals are received by the Deputy Director for Research, who subsequently discusses the goals and programmes’ activities with the respective programmes in order to bring them in-line with the resources that might be available in the context of the Board of Director’s decisions. Consequently, the in-house research committees review the plans. The management then review with the Deputy Directors in the process of (“top-down planning”) the draft plans in terms of feasible capacity, and in the context of competitive allocation of resources to the various units. This planning process has been designed to provide better decision making, as well as affirm the balance between decentralization of the management systems and the simultaneous need for co-operative coherence.

Assigning Priorities

68.The criteria for assigning priorities as an evaluation process, is to weight:-
(i)The potential of the particular programme activity for a scientific break through which is likely to remove a serious constraint on rural health or on food production (50%)
(ii)The research competence of programme staff (20%)
(iii)The ability to fund the relevant activity on a productive level for a required period of time (20%) and
(iv)The scientific and socio-economic uniqueness of the particular activity on the tropics (10%)
69. The proposed strategic plan is then presented to the Board of Directors, which reviews it through its Executive Committee and the Research Committee for scientific advice and for overall strategies and resources utilization. The Board of Directors shares the draft plans with visiting scientists, consultants and external reviewers appointed by the donors. Once approved by the Board of Directors, these plans govern the scientific programme of THIN during the plan period. Within these plans, the Executive Director, as the Chief Scientist, has the responsibility to introduce appropriate and productive scientific methodologies and new advances in science and technology to achieve programme objectives.
However, where new health challenges arise and if THIN has the opportunity to contribute in their management strategies the Board of Directors will examine management proposals in accordance with the set priorities and effective utilization of resources.

70.A mechanism for the periodical monitoring of THIN programmes in terms of quality, relevance to application and needs – should be agreed upon jointly by THIN, the donors, supporters and co-operating research institutions. It is suggested that the elements of these already exist in THIN – the Annual Board of Directors meeting of THIN, the appointment of independent visiting scientists and consultants, every 3-4 years and the Research and Training Committee.
71.An essential element in this development planning is that THIN needs a solid foundation of long-term core support, independent of any direct funding for co-operative programmes or contractual work – to give assurance that THIN can effectively accomplish its core activities in mission-oriented basic research and training, as well as for co-operative and contractual work that can be grafted on to it.
XVI. THE LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVES OF THIN

72.In 2002 when THIN started its work, it was an innovative experiment in institution building in Kenya – an experiment that would develop national capacities so that the potential contribution of science and technology to national development could be effectively realized and one that would organize its programmes to address the long-standing practical problems of the developing country(s).
The first five years of in-field experience has, at the very best, provided the practical experiences to achieve the rapid and significant successes which are to occur in the coming decades.
73.Over the last five years, the experiment has proved viable, and THIN is amply demonstrating its ability to generate scientific and technological information relevant to health management and poverty reduction in the tropics. The results of these researchers will become all the more important with the continuing realization that high technology and high cost methods, relying solely on drugs are not accessible to the resource-poor rural communities. Furthermore, such approaches give no long-term answers to health management and poverty reduction since the dynamics of disease and ill-health are much more complex that we expect.
74.The THINS vision for the next decade and beyond is to assist in promoting greater reliance in tropical developing countries on mission-oriented scientific research, leading directly to the generation of low-cost and viable health management technologies, relevant to locale specific socio-economic situations.
Social scientists, working in cooperation with biological and other scientists will ensure the development of culturally acceptable and cost effective health management strategies. This ensures that the adoption of technological innovations is facilitated by taking into account the needs and constraints of the end-users at the technology design stage. This vision further assures that a growing community of indigenous scientists and technologists, and practitioners with expertise in health and development are produced, who can join in this effort to generate new knowledge and to develop new technologies.
75.There is a challenging agenda ahead of us. However, the French poet Anatole France once wrote “to accomplish great things we must not only act but also dream not only plan but believe”. This seems a spirit embodied within THIN. THIN has the capacity to substantially help in both health and coping with long-term needs. This strongly calls for intensified research and training, as well as institutional development, more conducive for research and development. THIN because of its non-governmental and its base in a developing world has a significant role to play in these processes. You have indeed both planned and believed. You have made a wise choice to take a stake in the future.
76.We need some flexibility on both sides to make this process smooth and efficient. Issues arise that may relate to administration, planning of resource mobilization. But there is an obvious bottom-line that should help us solve these issues. We the partners of THIN – share the goal of taking an ambitious research training and development agenda forward, to make a real difference, especially for the poor, and to do what it takes to get research results translated into efficient control and development strategies. Exceptional management skills are needed to ensure that the organization’s activities and culture are not fragmented or suffer from any way world forces.

XVII. IMPLICATIONS FOR CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT AND PHASING

77.The first six (6) years of THIN was largely taken up in proving THIN model for doing development-oriented research without established donors to devote some funds to capital development. Thus it is now of crucial importance to put THIN on a sound physical basis for space and other permanent physical facilities to enable THIN carry out its mandate effectively; first because the present accommodation is patently impalpable. It consists of a two-room in Dandora Estate – one of the sprawling estates in Nairobi, 5 km from the city centre at a monthly rent. The office is in environments inconsistent with the urban planning authorities regulations. Secondly, the environments are not conducive for serious work and meeting our clients. There is very little opportunity for expansion. Thirdly, good accommodation and physical facilities are needed to service both the consolidation and expansion of activities, as well as facilitate the introduction of co-operative programmes with other institutions (dealing with research and development, training information systems etc.)
78.It is planned to develop a suitable THIN site with the help of our supporters with the following priorities in mind, and so phase its development during 2009-2014 and beyond according:-
(i)Insect and animal breeding research facilities, infrastructure for the site (access roads, water storage, sewage etc.
(ii)Experimental laboratories, research support units and the research support services
(iii)Training and conference facilities
(iv)Administration
(v)Accommodation for trainees and visiting scientists
The THIN research mandate requires also that it carries out extensive and long-term ecological and clinical observations in a variety of eco-systems and environments concerned with different aspects of THINS research and development programmes.
79.THIN needs in its planning a strong element of fundraising for capital and institutional development, training, programme support, commodity assistance as well as significant cost support to cover recurrent costs of specific activities. There is a need also to have a multi year or life-of-the project financing to reflect THIN emphasis on longer-term development strategies.
80.We invite assistance and funding from multi-lateral, bilateral, government bodies, non-governmental organizations, charitable foundations, the corporate sector, clubs (philanthropy, religions, professional) and the great general public.

THE LONG TERM COSTSOF ESTABLISHING AND MAINTAINING THIN ORGARNIZATION

The long term costs of establishing and maintaining THIN organization and its programmes would be borne by the people living in Kenya and her neighbours who would use the products. However, major benefits would accrue globally (in terms of indirect, option and assistance values). There is therefore a reason to suggest that the international community and various supporters should share in the costs of developing THIN organization and maintaining it for posterity.
81.THIN is a novel model on how development oriented research and training can be accomplished in Situ in a developing region on problems of direct relevance to the latter, while cooperating with the larger scientific community and contributing to the increase of the problem solving capacities of the developing region, and, through its training and education programmes, to the self-reliance of the people.
It is our sincere hope of the THIN Board of Directors that donor agencies and the international fraternity will grant THIN the long-term financial and technical assistance it needs to meet its goals and mandate.
XVIII. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

82.Because of its preponderant goal of increasing better human health and small scale agricultural food production through research, its commitment to the training of young scientists and technologists who would perpetuate these activities, THIN objectives are necessarily complementary to those of existing international health and agricultural research centres, the vector control organizations (national, regional, international) and other research institutes in the developing world.
83.In the last seventeen or so years we have spent preparing THIN organization; we have exchanged views of a large number of issues. It is also true to say that like Blannell Dubois on A street car named Desire we have always relied on the kindness of strangers, but in practice we have depended pretty heavily on friends as well. As a result of much intellectual pruning and preening, U-turns in moments of plagiasm, we have modified a lot of the material that is made into THIN organization. Some of these modifications were minor, sometimes major revisions and occasionally we have to simply reject a previous belief or stance. Most of these changes emerged from constructive – and sometimes clamorous discussions with doctors, scientists, policy makers, healers, individuals and inhabitants of different parts of Kenya. Some contributed new facts of which we were unaware, some helped us defend, define or occasionally reject our own views. When confronted with counter arguments or contrary evidence, with no exceptions we enjoyed those discussions and want to thank all the people who donated time and mental energy – teaching their arts of healing, their special experiences, for their friendship and hospitality and all the issues at the centre of THIN.
84.Although it is very difficult to single people out, there are some people who have had profound and wide-ranging influence on ways in which our ideas – and THIN have developed. We would particularly like to thank Professors, Isao Kubo, Department of Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkely, U.S.A; John Pringle, formerly of Cambridge Univeristy, U.K; Koji Nakanishi, Columbia University, U.S.A; the late Thomas R. Odhiambo – founder and former director of International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), Nairobi Kenya; Carl Djerassi formerly of Stanford University, U.S.A. E.D. Ekong, university of Nigeria, Nsuka Nigeria, Detricht Shneider, formally of Max-Plank university, Germany; Rachel Galuna formally of Hebrew university, Israel; the late Tsunematsu Tanemoto, formally of Tohuku university, Japan; Giovani Marin-Bettolo, formally university of Rome and Italo Africa Institute, Rome; John Law, university of Chicago, U.S.A; Jerald Meinwad formally of university of New York, U.S.A.; Corrado Gallefi, formally of instituto supiriore di sanita and Universita Cattolica Sacro cuore, Rome – with their staffs and colleagues.

XIX. RESOURCE MOBILIZATION AND FUNDRAISING

85. Although THIN has been registered eight or so years now there are striking roadblocks and constraints in its progress and what we can do. Some stem from the nature of the organization and what it stands for. Some are internally generated. First, to many people in authority either as policy makers or as development experts, THIN approach to science based problems seemed too far removed from practical realities of the human conditions in the country. The argument has been that THIN (or any other similar organization) should devote itself to the application of existing knowledge to the solution of human and development problems affecting Kenya and other developing countries. Secondly, although young and fresh THIN lacks the infrastructural and institutional capacity. It has yet to identify individuals and institutions which share in the solutions by becoming investors in our work.
86. You are the kind of individual/group/institution etc. who shares our outlook and approach. We are seeking your cooperation and personal intervention to make a significant contribution, one that will have a positive and lasting effect on many lives for years to come as well as find who we can reach, who might be useful to us. We urgently need to develop contacts and form relationships with people and institutions that can help us to succeed. Our association with you is appropriate, and most likely we see many opportunities of getting new insights in our endeavours, beaviour and thinking through our mutual association by developing novel projects.

87. HOW CAN YOU HELP

1.Donate print sources; Books, Encyclopedias,
magazines, microfilms, non print; documentaries
interviews (TV, radio);
2. Promotional and educational materials:
3.Donate cash, give regularly and generously;
4.Donate items and equipment (office furniture, computers
Vehicles, motor bikes, bicycles, cameras, power points
5.Donate gifts in kind; Buildings, Land, Shares, Stocks,
Deposits
6 Recruit volunteers, Experts to give time, education, skills
7.Facilitate training of THIN personnel and exchange
Programmes by giving fellowships, study tours;
8.Support in kind;
9. Accept our funding proposal;
10.Facilitate staff secondment;
11.Facilitate Advertisement and publications
12.Provide company facilities for conference, seminars etc;
13.Leave a legacy when you pop-off

REPLY FORM
88. I/We ………………………………………………………………………………
Individual/Family/Group/Organization/Institution/Corporate/
Embassy/Other
Address ………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Email ………………………………………………………………………………….
Wish to donate the following items to THIN organization
No
………………………………………………
………………………………………………
………………………………………………
………………………………………………
Kindly make a copy of this reply form, fill and send the filled form together with your crossed cheque in favour of:
Traditional Healthcare Integration Network (THIN)
P.O. Box 46665-00100 GPO
Nairobi, KENYA
Email: tradihealth@yahoo.co.uk or afyasili.org@live.co.uk
Deposit your crossed cheque or cash on Account Number 03-094-8207648 Barclays Bank, Market Branch, Nairobi Kenya.
THIN does not require clearance from the Kenya Government to receive funds

89. THIN TO-DAY

MISSION: THIN is a countrywide non-governmental, not-for-
Profit organization under legal administrative
Framework of NGO Act 1990, Section 10 Registration
No. OP218/081/9581/2148 under Healthcare

•To improve livelihoods through participating, Generating and dissemination and application of Knowledge in healthcare.

THIN focuses on the following areas:
•Rural knowledge systems
•Small holder food production
•Human Health and Welfare
•Livestock Health and Production
•Conservation of environments and utilization of biological diversity and natural resources
•Information and communication technologies
THINS strategy has been planned in four pillars
•Reducing vulnerability
•Improving access to resources
•Responding to appropriate information, knowledge and technologies
•Making markets work for the poor, who need help but no help has not come
VISION: THINS vision is health and prosperity throughout Kenya and
Beyond, a vision that recognizes the basic needs of health as an Urgent priority, as well as an apparatus to equitable sharing of the World wealth.

GOAL: Empowering rural and sub-urban communities with
knowledge and improved decision making to improve lives in these areas where poverty is concentrated.

CORE VALUES: Quality in all our operations, commitment, integrity, Transparency, accountability, efficiency, flexibility and
Local ownership

90. THIN is contributing to meeting the “Millenium Development Goals” of the United Nations through various Health and Development programmes and projects. The first five years of in-field working and experiences with the communities have at the very best, provided the practical and much needed experience necessary to achieve the rapid and significant successes which are to occur in the next decade.

LOCATION: Plot Number 5325,
Dandora Phase II
Off Kangundo Road, Nairobi
ADDRESS: P.O. Box 46665-00100 GPO, Nairobi Kenya
FAX NUMBER ……………………..
E-mail: tradihealth@yahoo.co.uk
Cell Phone (+254) 0733616602; (+254) 0733829503

March 2009