GENSEN, or GEN Senegal is the Senegalese national branch office of GEN, the Global Ecovillage Network (link). GEN is a non governmental Organization (NGO) with ECOSOC status. This means that GEN has special consultative status with the United Nations and is a member of the UN UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). GEN links together more than 17,000 ecovillages in the four regions shown in the image to the right.

Following a long history of ecovillage developments in individual countries, the Global Ecovillages Network was born in 1995. As shown in the fibure at the right, It integrates three major regions throughout the world :

(orange) GEN-Europe, Africa and the Middle East, to which African ecovillages belong while waiting to form an African regional network
(blue) ENA (Ecovillage Network of America), which groups together the Americas (South, Central et North)
(green) GENOA (Global Ecovillage Network of Oceania and Asia)which groups together the Americas (South, Central et North).

GEN intervenes throughout the world in:

• Ecovillage Design Education, teaching ecovillage concepts and technologies
• collection of information on ecovillages,
• publishing books about ecovillages and their activities,
• creation and maintenance of a website (gaia.org),
• safeguarding friendly relations and information sharing between members through conferences and meetings.