Central American Microfinance Conference

I had the great fortune to be in San Salvador at the same time as the Encuentro Centroamericano de Microfinanzas 2009, or the 2009 Meeting of Central American Microfinance Institutions.  I have my friend Scott in New Haven to thank for tipping me off. 

The conference was sponsored by ACCION International (www.accion.org) and the Citi Foundation (www.citi.com/citi/microfinance), and attended by non-profit microfinance organizations, for-profit microfinance institutions, government representatives, rating agencies and other interested parties.  The conference ran a day and a half and was chock full of experiences from the field and lots of new Spanish vocabulary words. 

Panel topics included responding to the regional economic crisis; funding microfinance organizations in Central America; learning from previous economic crises; reviewing and managing risk; and consumer protection.

Many of the topics were familiar as a result of my work in microfinance and my academic studies under Tony Sheldon at SOM, but the Latin American perspective was a new one for me.  It was also different simply to hear everything in Spanish, which I understood with varying levels of success depending on how tired my mind was over the course of the conference.  There were headphones available that broadcast real-time translations, but I was committed to fighting through with just Spanish.  My mind had to bend at times, as practically each speaker represented a different country with a slightly different accent.

Perhaps the most interesting discussions had to do with the impact of a country’s political environment on microfinance organizations, particularly in more socialist environments such as Nicaragua and Venezuela.  Apparently, in Nicaragua, it is not uncommon for populist groups to run “don’t pay back your loan” campaigns.  As some of you may know, my original placement for the Rotary scholarship was in Venezuela.  While Venezuela is a beautiful country with incredibly warm people across the political spectrum (I spent two weeks there in 2008 so got a good taste of the country and people), I decided to go to El Salvador instead because I felt my prospects for finding volunteer opportunities in microfinance and social enterprise would be severely limited there.  From what I learned at this conference, my perceptions of the limitations were correct.  I also enjoyed hearing the perspective of organizations at varying points along the microfinance commercialization spectrum, from small non-profits to large, for-profit microfinance institutions.

We also had a swanky reception at the San Salvador Art Museum:

San Salvador Art Museum

The highlight of the conference was meeting dedicated professionals from across the region, like Walter from Bancovelo in Honduras. 

Matt and Walter at the San Salvador Art Museum