About the Kédougou Institute
The Kédougou Institute:
- Supports locally-focused development progress in the region of Kédougou
- Provides a central source of information and documentation about the region’s progress and challenges, and
- Works with partners to innovate, test, refine, and document useful development solutions that may serve as models for the rest of the world.
We believe that Kédougou, the southeastern region of Senegal, is a special place that has much to offer the rest of the world: a rich cultural heritage, unique natural resources and beauty, and a vibrant population determined to build better opportunities for future generations.
Kédougou faces tremendous challenges around climate change, the social and environmental consequences of mining, rapid population growth, crowded classrooms, and other barriers to prosperity, peace, and environmental quality. With these tests come urgent opportunities to build collaborative solutions for a better future. That's why the Kédougou Institute was founded.
We believe that crafting solutions to our shared development challenges often requires addressing systemic national and international issues, but those solutions must also be explicitly place-based, informed deeply by local experiences and situations. We aim to help build those solutions in Kédougou.
The Kédougou Institute operates as a non profit corporation registered in the State of Washington (status approved 12/2024) and as a US tax exempt organization. (501c3 determination letter approved by the IRS 12/2024)
US EIN: 99-3161903 and UBI #: 605 639 587.
The Kédougou Institute: Our Work
Kédougou Institute projects are focused on key development and sustainability challenges facing the region. Each of these initiatives builds upon and is informed by past efforts and is in collaboration with local governments, organizations, and communities. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals provide a useful framework for establishing international goals and objectives, for building support for the investments required to meet them, and for measuring progress.
We will track regional progress and Kédougou Institute initiatives against these goals, along with other locally important measures. We are committed to transparent reporting of challenges and achievements, development of innovative solutions, and documentation of practices that can provide a model for progress in other parts of the world. The Institute will launch several initiatives in coming years, starting in 2024 with Info Kédougou, Brilliant Kédougou, Malaria Free Kédougou, and Green Kédougou.
Info Kédougou
Info Kédougou will provide a clearinghouse for regional information, measurement and evaluation, and analysis about development progress in Kédougou.
Brilliant Kédougou
The Brilliant Kédougou initiative aims to accelerate access to high-quality educational resources, with a focus on the appropriate integration of learning technologies into all levels of the educational system.
Malaria Free Kédougou
For nearly 20 years, globally-recognized innovation in the fight against malaria has been rooted in published research conducted in Kedougou. The Malaria Free Kédougou initiative will strive to accelerate progress toward eliminating malaria as a cause of death in Kédougou, historically the
most malaria-endemic region of Senegal.
Green Kédougou
The Kédougou region is experiencing severe negative consequences of global climate change, exacerbated by regional deforestation and environmental degradation. The Green Kédougou Initiative aims to support work to mitigate the impact of climate change on the people and ecology of Kédougou, with a focus on investing in proven agroforestry practices.
The Kédougou Institute: Vision and Mission
Our vision is a healthy, prosperous, educated, ecologically sustainable, culturally rich, and peaceful Kédougou for generations to come.
Our mission is to support sustainable development progress in the region of Kédougou, Sénégal, to document progress and challenges, and to help innovate, test, refine, and share region-specific solutions that can provide useful models for the rest of the world.
The Kédougou Institute: Cultural Values
Kédougou and Local Solutions
We believe that Kédougou is a special place and its people have faced tremendous challenges, many imposed by external factors, with great dignity. Sustainable solutions to development challenges are best rooted in local knowledge and experiences. This is decidedly true in Kédougou.
Transparency and Rigorous Analysis
Despite significant progress, global development has a long history of failures and missteps. We are committed to reporting clearly on measurements of success, analyzing rigorously what works and what doesn't. Transparency is essential to accelerating progress.
Mission Focus and Stewardship of Donor Support
We believe many development organizations have become more focused on sustaining their budgets and often outrageous compensation of their executives than on urgently focusing resources to meet the needs of the people of local communities. We are committed to highly efficient stewardship of donor support to ensure resources provided for our work are transparently focused on meeting the objectives that directly improve the lives of the people of Kédougou.
Equality and Urgency
We believe that every person’s life has equal value and that we all have an obligation to be good stewards of our shared planet for future generations. Kédougou’s challenges are acute and time sensitive, so we are committed to acting with urgency.
Partnership and Collaboration
We believe that the best and most sustainable approaches to improving everyday life for people living with poverty and for places experiencing harsh environmental circumstances are built through partnerships. Progress depends on the involvement of local citizens, government, civic organizations, and industry. Progress can accelerate with support of resources and knowledge from the global community. We commit to an open-minded exchange of ideas to help identify solutions with data-driven rigor..
Respect and Kindness
We believe in acting with humility and with respect for every person we encounter in our work. We strive to be an inclusive, multicultural organization led by those who grew up in Kédougou and supported by those who grew to love Kédougou. We aim to fight against all forms of discrimination and oppression.
Kédougou as a Model
Many may consider the region of Kédougou simply to be an isolated and impoverished corner of the world’s poorest continent, with little of value to share with others. We disagree. We believe that the people of Kédougou can develop, implement, and document creative development approaches to share with the rest of the world, and indeed they already have in sectors such as malaria prevention and treatment. Solutions crafted in Kédougou can provide global models for locally-driven progress in the fight to meet human needs with fairness and to preserve our shared natural heritage for future generations.
Contact Us
We want to hear from you, so please...
Email us at chris@kedougou.org!
