This research project studied resilience strategies developed over 100 years by communities in Southern Senegal, Western Mali, and Eastern Guinea. The project aimed to make these local solutions known beyond the communities and acknowledge the communities as knowledge producers. The methodology included workshops to train villagers on data collection via mobile phones and disseminating the information through a mobile app and website. The research found that new technologies can empower marginalized communities by helping them preserve and share their local knowledge, taking development into their own hands. The intended audiences were other similar villages, local governments, NGOs, and schoolchildren. The research has already contributed to change by increasing villagers' confidence in preserving and disseminating local knowledge through new technologies and media.

1. Resilience
in West African Frontier Communities
Southern Senegal, Western Mali
and Eastern Guinea
16 months
Challenges:
• Damaro (Guinea), Agnack (Senegal), Bouillagui (Mali) and Mon-
zona (Mali) have developed their own longstanding adaptive and
resilience strategies over the last 100 years.
• How can we make those solutions known beyond the local scale?
• How can we make these communities acknowledged as knowledge
producers and development makers in their own rights?
Methodology:
• Training workshops for villagers
• data collect through mobile phones
• dissemination through mobile app and website
What have you found?
New technologies are central to empower marginalized commu-
nities and help them to take their development challenges
in their own hands by making them confident enough to fur-
ther preserve their local knowledge and make it known beyond
their communities.
Who are the intended audiences for this research?
• Other villages in similar situation
• local government
• NGOs
• schoolchildren
Has the research already contributed to change?
• Villagers now confident in using new tech-
nologies to preserve and disseminate local
knowledge.
• Local historical knowledge now being used
in the classroom with schoolchildren
• Media training and participation in radio
and TV programmes have reinforced villagers’
self-confidence.
• Overall, communities increasingly more
self-confident in their ability to tackle devel-
opment challenges.