Miriam Freeman

Location / Country: Bogota, Colombia
Organization: Compartamentos con Colombia

FREEMAN: "I went to Colombia in May of this year to start my internship at Compartamos con Colombia (CCC) with lots of excitement and few expectations. I had visited Colombia for the first time in March on a Fletcher Latin America Group (FLAG) trek, and was left with a taste of how special the country was, but wanting to know more. Six months later, I can say Colombia surpassed every expectation, and my internship at CCC proved an incredible opportunity for personal and professional growth.”

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Compartamos con Colombia

“Compartamos has a unique model—leveraging private sector expertise to solve social sector challenges. What makes it different from other market-based approaches is its multi-firm arrangement. The organization was founded as the corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy of fifteen companies in Colombia (many of them multinational) with expertise in strategy, finance, law, and other professional services. Volunteers from these firms work as consultants on a pro-bono basis on specific projects for the Colombian social sector. The role of CCC is to connect the nonprofit and private sectors, adding value through strategic analysis and producing the final consulting deliverables. Compartamos’ projects fall into three categories: capacity building (its core), shared value, and social innovation. “

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The Experience

“Compartamos has an ongoing presence in Quibdó through partnerships with organizations like ACDI/VOCA and Fundación MIMA, as well as the Detonante entrepreneurship festival now in its third year. Quibdó is one of the rainiest places in the world and the poorest city in Colombia by some measures. Projects ground to a halt earlier this summer when there was a general strike, citing government indifference, incomplete highways, lack of healthcare, and other public services. Illegal mining, corruption, and guerilla conflict have added fuel to the fire. A former slavery hub, it is no coincidence that the region has the largest afro-descent population in the country, and one of the largest indigenous populations. With 62% of residents living below the poverty line, several people told me that the region’s development indicators align more closely with sub-Saharan Africa than Latin America. I was grateful for the opportunity to see a different side of Colombia and contribute in some small way to the growing entrepreneurial movement there.

For all of the challenges they face, Chocoanos are resilient. The ACDI/VOCA project began in January and has included a series of workshops for the 28 entrepreneurs it supports on topics from accounting to peacebuilding. Along with two colleagues, I led a strategy workshop, combining a business canvas model with human-centered design techniques to encourage entrepreneurs to think outside the box and embrace new ideas for their businesses. These entrepreneurs understand clearly that what they are selling goes beyond jewelry, chocolate, or other products—they are selling the opportunity to change the region’s image nationally and internationally, by preserving local culture and traditions. To me, this is what market approaches to development are all about.”

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Conclusions

“My experience in Colombia surpassed every expectation. During my short time there, I worked with incredible colleagues, became familiar with a number of important local players, was introduced to the world of nonprofit consulting, and in some small way participated in important efforts to strengthen the social sector in Colombia. I surprised myself with my ability to apply finance and strategy skills acquired at Fletcher, and left inspired to learn more skills that I can apply to creating social change after graduation. After ten weeks, I feel I only touched the surface of all the country has to offer, and of the diverse challenges it faces. These are exciting times for Colombia, and I’m eager to see how things progress.”

Laura Cuéllar

Country: Colombia & Ecuador
Organization: Ayuda en Acción

Laura worked with Ayuda en Acción (AeA), a Spanish development NGO that has worked for over 30 years in enhancing the welfare of millions of people around the world. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of AeA is its model: rather than deploying its teams on the ground, AeA identifies local NGOs and supports them financially during an average of twelve to eighteen years. Throughout what it defines as “territorial development,” AeA identifies the community’s most urgent needs –from food security to production and/or commercialization barriers, gender issues, education, and social fragmentation– and designs a long-term integral and panoramic agenda to addresses them. 

Laura:  "Every three years, AeA and its local partners outline the overall development goals and lines of action that will be implemented throughout the upcoming three years in what they call the Triennial Intervention Plan (PIT)1. Each PIT is comprised by between eight to twelve micro- projects, which are the specific development initiatives that will be carried out throughout the triennium2.

During my internship at AeA, I was responsible for analyzing the PITs of Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay and systematizing the micro-projects that intended to stimulate the community’s local economy. In order to do this, I came up with a series of categories that provided a comprehensive understanding of each micro-project. These categories were: country, Territorial Development Area (ADT)4, local NGO, local NGO code5, micro-project name, micro-project code, description of the micro-project, development goal, path chosen to stimulate the local economy, and analytics6. More often than not, a single micro-project included several analytics and more than one path chosen to stimulate the local economy.  

This internship was my first real-life exposure to development issues. Visiting these communities, talking to community members, witnessing the work of local NGOs, and tying my background in Latin American history to the issues that people are currently facing not only fulfilled me at a personal level, but also reassured me that I want to keep working in the development field after graduating from Fletcher.

Throughout the internship, however, I noticed something that concerned me: the absolute lack of state presence throughout the communities I visited. From schools, to roads, to wells, to everything the communities counted with, had been provided either by NGOs or by the communities themselves. In a way, NGOs such as AeA and its local partners fill voids that states cannot, or do not want to, fill and, hence, have a fundamental role in the wellbeing of these communities. However, there is a limit to what NGOs can do and, unfortunately, their deeds cannot be extended to all poor areas of the countries where they operate.

The oblivion to which states condemn these secluded and impoverished areas is perhaps the main obstacle to their development. In order for long-term self-sufficient economic development to take place, structural changes through which the public sector integrates impoverished regions to the system –for instance through the provision of public services, security, and access to efficient legal and political institutions– are required. Seeking to generate the greatest possible impact in the wellbeing of these communities, this reasoning has, without a doubt, awakened my interest in joining the public sector once I return to Colombia. "