Sustainability and development of EWE communities in Ghana through indigenous knowledge management practices

Purpose Losing indigenous knowledge is to lose the future and impoverish the societies because indigenous knowledge is considered one of the cornerstones and survival of communities, societies and economies. This study, thus, aims to explore and assess the contextual enablers of indigenous knowledge and their role in developing and sustaining the Ewe communities in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach The qualitative research design, which enabled the researcher to engage the participants in an interview process and observation, was used in this study. It was augmented with a quantitative design using structured questions. Data analysis was guided by the basic principles of grounded theory. The coding system was aided by NVivo to analyze the qualitative data, while the quantitative data was analyzed using the SPSS. Descriptive analysis and graphs were deployed in the presentation of the findings. Findings The study discovered that the communities are in possession of several types of indigenous knowledge, ranging from tacit to explicit knowledge, which are embedded in their cultural and traditional systems and unique to every community; the culture of trust among the citizens and motivation to create and share knowledge in communities was high. Same time, family heads, farmer groups, libraries and museums played key roles in the preservation and management of indigenous knowledge in the communities. On the other hand, information officers and institutions like churches and police posts played insignificant roles in the management and preservation of knowledge in the communities just as the absence of a culture of willingness by the community members to create and share knowledge. Additionally, there was an absence of technological infrastructure, platforms, databases and policies to aid the management and preservation of knowledge in the communities. The study concludes that indigenous knowledge plays a vital role in the development and sustainability of communities in Ghana. Practical implications Community leaders and political leaders need to invest in systems and structures that will promote the management and preservation of indigenous knowledge for the development of the communities and the state as a whole. Originality/value The study demonstrates its originality in terms of scope, setting, population and empirical evidence by focusing on the role of indigenous knowledge in the sustainability and development of Ewe communities in Ghana.