# Vignette 12: Ecuador's Innovation Minga
In Quito's San Roque neighborhood, the May First Central Platform serves as the city's main distribution center for medicinal plants. Over 100 herbalists, mostly women over 60 years old, maintain vital connections between urban communities and ancestral plant knowledge. However, this traditional trade faces several challenges, including restricted access to collection areas, changing consumer habits, the impact of climate change on plant species, and a lack of generational continuity.
The UNDP Ecuador Accelerator Lab launched an innovative participatory process they called "Minga de Innovación"[\[1\]](#endnote-1) – drawing on the Quichua word for collective work – to help strengthen and preserve this vital practice. Working under the principle "no solutions without those concerned," they brought together herbalists, university students, museum educators and municipal officials to co-create solutions to the vendors' challenges.
Through ethnographic immersion, including early morning market visits and walks through collection areas (Figure 27), the team discovered the complex web of knowledge and relationships that sustain this trade. The herbalists possess expertise in identifying and sustainably harvesting more than 100 medicinal species. They also understand the properties of these plants within the context of Andean cosmology and maintain essential ecological relationships in the areas where they collect these resources.
A key insight emerged: supporting the herbalists wasn't just about individual livelihoods; it was about preserving a whole interconnected system of knowledge, culture, and biodiversity.[\[2\]](#endnote-2) This understanding led to parallel interventions across multiple levels. The team documented traditional knowledge in the first-ever medicinal plant catalog[\[3\]](#endnote-3) and created the collaborative "Territories that Heal" digital map showing herbalists' places of work, distribution circuits, and healing sites.[\[4\]](#endnote-4) They also piloted plant dehydration systems to reduce waste and developed low-cost irrigation solutions for herb gardens.
Over time, perceptions of traditional herbalists began to change. Guided by the principle of self-determination, these practitioners created their own Code of Ethics for responsible practices in medicinal herb foraging.[\[5\]](#endnote-5) This effort, combined with ongoing engagement, helped institutions recognize them not as informal vendors requiring regulation, but as guardians of ecological and cultural heritage. As a result, the Ministry of Health at the national level started drafting policies that officially acknowledge the role of traditional herbalists in monitoring and protecting ancestral knowledge, health, and the natural ecosystems from which they collect plants. This shift highlights their important contributions as herbal medicine collectors, producers, and vendors.
{% hint style="info" %}
#### **Key takeaways:**
* **Practice deep immersion:** Real participation requires continuous dialogue and trust-building over time. Walk alongside communities to understand their daily realities firsthand.
* **Ensure "no solution without those concerned":** Make this principle central to every stage of work, from problem definition through implementation.
* **Maintain continuous engagement:** Go beyond occasional workshops to establish ongoing presence where different forms of expertise can meet as equals.
* **Help the ecosystem see itself:** Map connections between people, places, and institutions to reveal interdependencies and make complex systems visible to stakeholders.
{% endhint %}
***
## Notes
1. See the report by the UNDP Accelerator Lab Ecuador (2023). [↑](#endnote-ref-1)
2. Jiménez (2023) [↑](#endnote-ref-2)
3. PNUD Laboratorio de Aceleración Ecuador (2022) [↑](#endnote-ref-3)
4. See the website: [↑](#endnote-ref-4)
5. See Jiménez (2024) [↑](#endnote-ref-5)
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