AGORA Partnerships, a project co-founded by CALI Fellow Ricardo Teran Teran, was started with the belief that Central America needed to create and grow a new class of socially-responsible, competitive businesses that would generate productive jobs and drive the economic development necessary to fight poverty. Entrepreneurs are critical to job creation, yet too many in the developing world are on the sidelines when they could be starting business and competing in international markets.

AGORA Partnerships gives developing world entrepreneurs the management tools, networks and financing needed to launch successful, socially-responsible businesses, by providing strategic and practical business consulting, as well as the opportunity to obtain long-term risk financing from an investment fund specifically designed for them. Since launching Agora in the summer of 2005, over 34 entrepreneurs have received support from hundreds of experienced consultants. Our goal in the next three years is to support over 20 ventures a year, provide equity and quasi-equity funding to 15-20 ventures from the Agora Venture Fund, and create hundreds of productive jobs in Nicaragua. In the medium and long term, we hope to expand our network throughout Central America, using the CALI network as a cornerstone in this strategy.

Go to website