John Beasley

Country: Nicaragua
Organization: Hurricane Ventures

BEASLEY: "My internship this summer with Hurricane Ventures expanded upon an idea born out of the commercial challenges of developing, operating, and maintaining a solar energy project in Central America.

The previous summer I worked with a project developer, Global 2020, on a 12.5MW solar project near the capital city of Managua. In the process of overall market research and specifically while sourcing contractors, Global 2020 recognized the overwhelming lack of local human capital capable of performing the required engineering and electrical work to build and operate a solar field. Furthermore, while this project was the first and largest of its kind in Nicaragua, other Central American countries had previously built solar projects, only to see their productivity drop significantly or fail entirely due to lack of certifications, regulations, and overall operation and maintenance challenges (O&M). As the summer of 2016 progressed, we (Global 2020) began to sketch out a rough outline of what a training program might look like and brought in Hurricane Ventures, a local project management firm with experience in socially oriented initiatives to begin implementation.

Over the course of the 2016/2017 academic year, I worked with Hurricane Ventures to draft proposals and grant applications to source funding for the project. We initially envisioned a simple collaboration and joint venture with a local Nicaraguan university that would use Global 2020’s working project site as a classroom facility to incorporate into engineering and electrical training classes.

Today's project is still ongoing and I continue to help Hurricane Ventures, primarily with writing proposals and explaining the breakdown of the project for various agencies. One visual that includes some of the German companies who will be involved can be found in my PowerPoint presentation. As my blog posts indicated, I grew quite frustrated with the bureaucratic slog that accompanied the expansion of the project. Governments and aid agencies move very slowly and cautiously but the need for this type of training in the region is immediate. I am encouraged by the enthusiasm with which our ideas were received but I worry that the program will not reach its potential before more mistakes in the solar industry have been made. Ultimately though, I believe this project is headed in the right direction and can be a future model for technology transfer in developing countries. The critical piece is that the private sector players have a financial incentive to help and this is not just an aid project. For developers like Global 2020, being able to hire local workers for O&M will significantly cut down on CAPEX spending, and the German suppliers will gain a foothold in a region with great potential. The challenge remains getting all the disparate groups, with various goals and objectives, to work together towards a common goal and share the financial risk accordingly.

Justin Erickson

Countries: Managua, Nicaragua
Organization: Technoserve

JUSTIN: "This summer I worked at Technoserve in Managua, Nicaragua. Technoserve is a large international non-government organization that works in the areas of agriculture and entrepreneurship. They are based in Washington, D.C., but they have offices in Africa, Latin America, and India. I worked out of Managua, which is their headquarters for Central America. About one hundred people (almost exclusively Nicaraguan) work out of the office. I traveled to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala during the internship. The eight-week long internship was formalized on the part of Technoserve as part of their Volunteer Consultant Program. Volunteer consults work on projects in all of the areas Technoserve works.

Technoserve brought me on board in order to better understand their place in the entrepreneurship assistance market in Central America. They are currently running two entrepreneurship programs in the region. One is called CRECE. CRECE is a program for young people to help them develop their business ideas or start-ups. The other is ITE, which stands for Impulsa Tu Empresa (push your business). This program is for small and medium enterprises in the C-4 region (Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala) to grow their businesses. The average business in this program has about 14 employees and does about $200,000USD in sales per year. Both of these programs have been running for about three years in the C-4 region. About 75 businesses participate in the program per country per year."

At the end I created a thirty slide presentation and presented it to my supervisor in Managua. We then looked discussed some changes to be made and I turned in a final report. I was invited to give my presentation to the Director of Entrepreneurship in Washington, D.C., and so after my fellowship ended I went to D.C. to give the presentation. Using my work, Technoserve has a better understanding of its place in Central America, ideas for how it can create more impact, a qualitative review of their two main entrepreneurship programs, and a starting framework that will appeal to funders as they are in the process to raising money to support the programs in the future.

Meghan

Country: Nicaragua

Meghan conducted the Program Evaluation of a microcredit and sustainable agriculture program in Leon, Nicaragua for SosteNica, a U.S.-based nonprofit that funds sustainable agriculture and development initiatives in rural Nicaragua . As the Evaluation Consultant, Meghan developed and conducted an assessment of the socio-economic and environmental impact of this pilot program on its participants.

Sebastian

Countries: Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala

Sebastián spent ten weeks working for Catholic Relief Services in Central America under the Agriculture for Needs (A4N) project, implemented in Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. During this time, he traveled through these countries, interviewing farmers and women in savings groups, as well as local partners’ Staff. As a result of his work, CRS adapted a set of guidelines to be applied regionally for A4N. These guidelines set clear rules for local partners to implement the project and how to work wit the beneficiaries in delivering tangible and intangible inputs for agricultural production, small business, savings groups and large investments in productive infrastructures. Sebastián experienced firsthand the powerful effect that savings groups have in women’s lives and the challenges faced by rural households in the most impoverished areas in Central America.

Luis

Country: Nicaragua

Luis worked with a team from FINCA. Over 600 surveys were completed in 10 weeks and survey results, analysis and recommendations were presented to local FINCA management. The FINCA Client Assessment Tool (FCAT) was used for these microcredit social impact surveys.

Caitlin

Country: Nicaragua

Caitlin evaluated the results of AFODENIC’s residential financial services and provided its senior management with strategic recommendations for how to improve their housing micro-finance portfolio qualitatively and quantitatively.