And the Granada Declaration was signed…

I’m back home in Washington after attending the ANDE Latin America Conference in Granada, Nicaragua. It was one of the most exciting trips I've made representing NextBillion. Granada was spectacular and the ANDE Latin America Conference stood out in many ways.

The open and generous tone of the event was remarkable, and was evident when planning for the event started almost six months ago, and the host organizations (Agora, Root Capital and Technoserve) reached out to the rest of ANDE and asked what would make a Latin American conference truly unique. The answer was collaboration, which is only possible by creating spaces in which trust is built through genuine interactions among representatives of different organizations. A true ecosystem (the biological metaphor that is more and more the buzzword of the industry, and signifies the mutual dependence and reinforcement of the organizations in it) will work only if its parts know each other well – not only at a general level but also, and most importantly, at an operational level of daily challenges.

The goal of gathering 100 practitioners from the region was surpassed with a final attendance of more than 140 participants from 70 organizations. The agenda was well balanced, with high-level general plenaries and parallel working sessions focused on the challenges common to organizations serving small and growing businesses. I had a chance to lead a workshop on the importance of blogging and community building, which was well received by organizations that still have not jumped on board with these trends. Lastly, the organization and logistics were impeccable. Everything worked seamlessly and staff were available and willing to help at all times. I have been to many conferences and this one met world-class standards.

So: good attendance, good agenda and excellent organization. That’s a wrap-up, right? Well, not quite. Two additional ingredients added to these and provided the touch that turns good into very good, or in this case very good into remarkable: Granada itself and the generosity of its people.

Granada, on the shore of Lake Nicaragua, has a distinct colourful, colonial architecture and a slow, pleasant pace that perfectly accords with the kindness of its people. From my hotel in the city’s main square, I could watch the merchants prepare their stands for the day and Granadinos greeted us with a smile and a ‘buenos días’. I watched mothers walking their children to the primary school three blocks away from the hotel and then listened to the echoes of the school building full of children as we walked by it on the way to the conference venue around 8.15am.

The sound was recharging. Ben Powell, managing director of Agora, said it in his opening remarks and we returned to it again later: families and kids getting ready for school in a place like Nicaragua gives a social enterprise conversation a different level of ‘reality’. I’m sure this crossed the minds of most other attendees: the sound of children playing is inspiring and leads you to think about the impact your work has. The almost child-like energy that filled the main conference room seemed to be highly influenced by these observations.

A great conference in a magical place like Granada is already hard to match, but at dinner on Thursday evening, Ben unveiled the Granada Declaration, a document that sums up the spirit of the conference and the shared goal of the organizations in it to legitimize business as a tool to fight poverty. By the time we went back to our hotels, the group felt less like a conference and more like a group of old friends out on a road trip.

I came back home inspired by the people I met (let alone a lengthy list of initiatives I have to write about) and hopeful for the future of the movement in Latin America. There’s a lot of work to be done and I'm honoured to be part of the group that will continue to tackle it. A sincere thank you goes to everyone that worked to make this possible at ANDE, Agora Partnerships, Root Capital and Technoserve.

Event ANDE Latin America Conference: Connect, Collaborate, build the field
Date 23-26 March
Venue Granada, Nicaragua

Francisco Noguera is an Associate with the Markets and Enterprise Programme at the World Resources Institute, and a Co-Managing Editor for NextBillion.net. Email fnoguera@wri.org. This article first appeared on www.NextBillion.net.

For more information
www.andelatinamerica.org