Who owns the image of the Maasai?

WITH THE INTELLECtual property component, the community is trained to make informed decisions about how to manage intellectual property assets in a way that corresponds with its values and development goals.

The programme also stimulates creativity within the community, can promote local economic and cultural development and helps to bridge the “digital divide,” key objectives of both the Millennium Development Goals and WIPO’s Development Agenda.

It is sad, said Ole Kaunga, that when the Kenya government came up with policies such as the preservation of parks and reserves, it excluded the Maasai, whom he believes are the key stakeholders.

As if this was not bad enough, the increasing population has made the traditional Maasai way of life increasingly difficult to maintain. With poverty and migration, the traditional authority of Maasai elders has weakened.

“Anyway, who would listen to a hungry, poor old man?” Ole Kaunga asks.

Over the years, many projects have been started to help Maasai tribal leaders preserve their traditions while also balancing the education needs of their children for the modern world.

But according to Ole Kaunga, this is not enough. The emerging forms of employment among the Maasai have seen many move away from the nomadic life to responsible positions in commerce and government, in the process losing their cultural values.

The National Museums of Kenya will provide ongoing institutional support by participating as partners in evaluation. Together with the Maasai community, NMK will make recommendations for its improvement and further development.

This pilot project forms part of WIPO’s Creative Heritage Project, which is developing an integrated set of practical resources and guidelines for cultural institutions such as museums and indigenous communities on managing intellectual property options when digitising intangible cultural heritage.

ACCORDING TO WIPO Director General Francis Gurry, this innovative capacity-building partnership with the Laikipia Maasai addresses a pressing yet legally and practically complex question — how can indigenous and local communities record and promote their traditional cultural expressions without ceding authority over how the recordings are used by third parties?

The results of the pilot programme will be shared with other indigenous communities and depending on the feedback, WIPO may offer similar programmes to other communities and institutions from other countries, he noted.

The project stems from a request received by WIPO from the Maasai community. WIPO made an exploratory visit to the community in late 2006, together with the International Labour Office in Geneva. This visit was also facilitated by the Kenyan government taskforce appointed to develop laws and policies for the protection of traditional knowledge, genetic resources and folklore.

In consultation with the community, WIPO invited the American Folklife Centre to develop this pilot training programme. AFC and the Centre for Documentary Studies then jointly developed the curriculum for the training programme.