CIKOD works to transform indigenous institutions and local groups into vibrant grassroots civil society organisations which encourage the participation of rural communities in their won development processes. CIKOD facilitates dialogue around the vital role of indigenous knowledge in modern development and empowerment.

Community participation has been accepted as a pre-condition for any meaningful community development programmes. To this end, various tools have been developed that aim at maximising the participation of the poor in their development programmes. CIKOD believe that, in spite of these participatory approaches, poverty reduction is still problematic because of the failure to build community development interventions that respect and include local cultures and people’s worldviews. The core of CIKOD’s work is to promote a community development approach that empowers and builds on the existing indigenous institutions and resource base of communities including their natural, social and spiritual resources – termed as Endogenous Development.  In this approach communities use the skills and knowledge already present in the community as a means to lever appropriate external resources for their development initiatives.

For more information about CIKOD, please visit their website www.cikod.org