UCA & Nitlapan partnership
The 2023-2024 Paul Panda Farnana Prize was awarded to the UCA/Nitlapan partnership, a collaboration between UAntwerp (formerly UFSIA) and the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA – Managua) that started already in 1988. This partnership, which began with a project loaning chickens to vulnerable farmers, evolved into the FDL, one of the largest and most peasant oriented microfinance organisations in Nicaragua and Central America. At UCA, Nitlapan was created as the academic research wing committed to critically support FDL and peasants and other small producers. From the very beginning, the UAntwerp was part of these initiatives.
Despite recent challenges, including the Nicaraguan government's confiscation of the UCA, the partnership's commitment to solidarity, sustainability, and inclusive research continues. In this sense, this is a truly long-term partnership inspired by Global Engagement “avant la lettre”. Furthermore, research and education at Nitlapan have always been driven by the desire to take knowledge from Nicaragua and bring this into dialogue with western knowledge, even before decolonization discussions became ‘fashionable’. Nitlapan adopts a grounded and territorial perspective, always keeping an eye on making visible the struggles and livelihoods of excluded groups.
The collaboration spans education, research, and societal outreach in both Antwerp and Nicaragua, yielding significant outcomes such as developing expertise in financial inclusion and green microfinance, organizing over 20 exposure trips, supporting about 30 field trips for master dissertations, backing at least 12 PhD trajectories, and launching a collaborative master program through the VLIR ICP Connect project with partners in Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador. Additionally, it includes financial support and guidance for numerous junior researchers at Nitlapan by USOS.
In recent years, Nicaragua's socio-political landscape has deteriorated, notably with the harsh suppression of the 2018 uprising. The regime has intensified its assault on NGOs, academic institutions, and media, culminating in the unjust closure and seizure of the UCA in August 2023, under false accusations. Despite these challenges, those involved in the partnership are exploring new ways to continue their meaningful work, now relying on informal methods and personal connections, in hope of a future political shift. All in all, this story testifies of the value of long-term commitment, building education, research and outreach from the ground up, personal engagement, and North-South collaboration in solidarity, hoping that one day the political situation will change.
The UCA-Nitlapan partnership fully deserves the Paul Panda Farnana Prize, not only because it is an embodiment of the Global Engagement values of our university, but also as an encouragement for all the people involved, and a signal of hope for the future.