Paper short abstract:

Knowledge ‘generation’ and perpetuation towards public health interventions in Africa has always been championed by global north multilateral organizations at the expense of local knowledge preservation, undermining the contextual interplay between traditional and modern health knowledge systems.

Paper long abstract:

Public health interventions in Africa, particularly those targeting behaviour change around water, sanitation and hygiene have been majorly perpetuated by the multilateral organizations from the global north. This has been done at the expense of indigenous knowledge and practices which have been applied by communities over the years. The north-south relationships has been skewed due to colonial legacy which ‘wiped’ indigenous knowledge and practices relegating them to ‘traditional’ that cannot influence or impact development. Things have been made not better with the transactional nature of the governments relationships when it comes to aid and donor relations leading to none adoption and adaption of indigenous knowledge to public health interventions. More so, this transactional and master-servant nature of donor aid towards public health interventions in Africa has impeded knowledge flow to influence local or national policies on health. There is need for multilateral agencies implementing public health interventions to explore and adopt indigenous knowledge in their undertakings. The adoption and adaption of local and cultural factors such as indigenous knowledge and practices not only assist in improving health outcomes but also local acceptability, ownership and sustainability in improving quality of life.