Kenan Institute Asia

Kenan Institute Asia (Kenan), the operational name for the Kenan Foundation Asia, is a leading Thailand based non-profit organization which serves the sustainable development needs of the Greater Mekong Subregion (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand,Yunnan Province in southern China), and Vietnam.

Founded in 1996, Kenan works to address the challenges facing South East Asia through free enterprise mechanisms, boundary-spanning partnerships and expertise gained through practical development experience. The organization specializes in designing, managing and implementing programs in five main areas: public health; youth development and innovative education; entrepreneurship; sustainable tourism; business and economic development; and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Evolving from a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Thailand, Kenan was founded in 1996 with an endowment provided by USAID, the Thai government, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust and the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, part of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun serving as the founding chairman, the Institute initially focused on fostering development partnerships between U.S. and Thai organizations based on the belief that challenges facing South East Asia could best be addressed through free enterprise mechanisms, boundary-spanning partnerships and expertise gained through practical development experience.

Within its first few months of its existence, Kenan was faced with responding to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It did so through the American Corporations for Thailand (ACT) Program, launched in 1998 chaired by former Prime Minister of Thailand and the then-current Kenan chairman Mr. Anand Panyarachun and Dr. Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State. The project worked with major U.S. companies in Thailand to support human resource development, retraining those left unemployed by the crisis. Ten donor companies and organizations contributed US $1.1 million for ACT’s first three years. The donors provided another $700,00 for the project in 2001 to expand the program to include secondary and environmental education. In total, ACT awarded over 50 grants on a competitive basis to Thai universities, non-profit and government training organizations throughout the country, training approximately 700 trainers and 2,700 trainees.

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