SODEV International was founded in June 2000 in Washington, DC, in the United States of America by Ms. Félicité Ahoéfa Adjahouinou, a Beninese who, being aware of the poor living conditions of marginalized communities in her home country, and in West Africa in general, and has committed herself to helping them make their lives better.

Between 2000 and 2016, guided by two umbrella programs, we undertook numerous projects to carry out the organization's mission in nearly 100 villages. Ms. Adjahouinou first designed and activated the Comprehensive Program to Promote Basic Education and Rural Enterprises for Community Development. However, after a few years, the desire to better serve rural communities called for a reform of the initial program that became the Rural Communities’ Development Program (RCDP).

Toward the end of 2016, we undertook new initiatives to broaden the scope of SODEV International’s actions for greater impact. As a result, after some extensive groundwork, we conceived additional programs and projects: the Capacity-Building Program for District Chiefs (CBPDC); the Capacity-Building Program for Village Chiefs and Advisors (CBPVCA); the Capacity-Building Program for Community Organizations (CBPCO), and the Capacity Building Program for Artisans. Also, we took a closer look at the types of assistance most needed by vulnerable people, we reformed an existing program into the People in Need Program (PNP), which now has three components: the Helping Hands Project, Assistance to the Sick, and Solidarity Meal Project. We also initiated some agricultural activities, such as the planting of selected palm trees as part of the Agriculture Promotion Program (APP). Finally, we are currently working to establish a craft training center, a project that will take three to four years to launch but the groundwork is underway. Other than the PNP, all the other programs are geared towards educating, training, and building the capacity of the target groups, and all converge to advance the mission of SODEV, which is to contribute to sustainable socioeconomic and cultural development in West Africa.

We are currently carrying out our mission in numerous villages in the Atlantique and Littoral Provinces of Benin. Our goal is to gradually extend SODEV activities to the other provinces of Benin and ultimately to neighboring countries.