WCCN's Newsletter, Fall 2008, Volume 24, No. 3

By Carlos Arenas
WCCN Executive Director

During the last week of August, several WCCN staff and board members attend­ed the Fourth Central American Confer­ence on Microfinance in Guatemala City. This important event takes place every two years in a different Central American country, and it is the main gathering for microfinance institutions that work in this region. Having just returned from that trip, we feel very confident that WCCN is not only heading in the right direction, but that our diversification strategy is sound and progressing as planned.

Summer 2008 was rough for the microfinance industry in Nicaragua. Daniel Ortega’s government orchestrated an irresponsible set of attacks against microfinance organizations, and, for the first time ever, we saw public protests against them. The protests were actually focused in only a few municipalities in northern Nicaragua, where President Ortega has a strong base of support.

by Sheldon Rampton
Board member

I didn’t do much sightseeing when fel­low WCCN board member Gregg John­son and I visited Guatemala City in Au­gust with staff members Carlos Arenas, Emily Allred, and Francisco Barquero. Our trip was all business: three days of meetings with 21 organizations that lend to low-income borrowers in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Managua, Nicaragua
August 6th, 2008

Throughout the years, we have collected a diverse and representative number of testimonies describing the benefits microfinance has brought to Nicaragua. That is why the undersigned organizations wish to express their joint concern about the events of the last weeks, in which a group of debtors united in the Movimiento de Comerciantes y Productores de Nueva Segovia (MCPS) have organized protests and initiated action against several MFI branches, culminating in the unfortunate event on Tuesday, July 22nd in the city of Ocotal, when a small group of unsatisfied borrowers attempted to set fire to a branch of an MFI.

by Susan Frisbie
Development & Marketing Director

Microfinance investment vehicles like the NICA Fund are proud to offer double bottom-line returns. Not only do social­ly responsible investors make a financial return, but in the case of the NICA Fund, they also provide opportunity to impoverished Nicaraguans—their social return. Most investment vehicles mea­sure performance with equity ratios, asset productivity, liquidity, etc. Howev­er, financial indicators are only half the story.

by Susan Frisbie
Development & Marketing Director

When Francisco Javier Perez Delgadillo left his hometown of Chontales, he said the people he had known for his en­ tire life were “fractured.” Chontales had been a center of the contra war. He moved to Tipitapa, a growing commer­ cial center just outside of Managua, to give himself and his family a new start.

If you live in or near Madison, WI, or plan to be in the area on December 6th, please join us at the Fair Trade Holiday Fair!

Our monthly electronic update is now officially on the net!

Join the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua as we visit Nicaraguan organizations that empower communities and improve the quality of life of thousands of people through alternative economic projects. Witness the effect of providing microcredit to small urban and rural producers, cooperatives involved in the fair-trade coffee movement, and organizations working with the urban poor.