Indigenous knowledge is essential for rural development. Until recently, this knowledge has been under attack for being “backward, static and a hindrance” to modernization. Because of using the inopportune transfer of technologies from western cultures to developing countries, many economical and social and environmental problems have been arisen in these countries. So “Inward Oriented Development” approaches for sustainable rural development have been propounded. In the shadow of the new approaches, local capacities and IK come to a priority and were considered by the scholars of development. In this paper we tried to respond to the following questions according to the literature of the subject and documentary describing analytic method: 1. What are the differences between IK and Formal Knowledge? 2. What is the position and role of IK in sustainable rural development? The findings of research show that although there have been differences between IK & FK, they do not oppose, because they are complementary. In new paradigms of rural development, first the indigenous solutions should be used as the solution for problems. If they were adjustive, they must be strengthened and improved. Otherwise, exogenous solutions must be used.

Keywords: Key words: Indigenous Knowledge (IK), Formal Knowledge, Sustainable

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