About the Event

The Collaborative for Frontier Finance (CFF) hosted its 5th Annual Convening from February 28 to March 4, 2025; an in-person multi-day event at Sawela Lodge, Lake Naivasha, Kenya. The CFF Annual Convening is the only event explicitly focused on ESCPs who address the “missing middle” financing gap in emerging markets.

The event aimed to:

  • Encourage shared learning through open dialogue and market-based discussions to accelerate investment readiness.

  • Demystify small business finance by building a mutual understanding among ESCPs, ecosystem stakeholders, and institutional investors/LPs.

  • Introduce emerging pathways and forge new ones to align institutional investment and ESCPs.

  • Facilitate peer-to-peer learning between ESCP network members, demystify the current LP construct and their role in catalyzing this emerging asset class, and co-create solutions to address systemic bottlenecks.

Explore the learning brief highlighting key takeaways from the event.

How is a Convening different from a Conference?

Answered by Circle Generation

  • A collective journey. We’re a small group in a shared experience from start to finish. Not a small fish in an ocean of attendees popping in and out of simultaneous sessions and tracks.

  • It’s participatory. Rather than being in the stands, talked to from a sage on stage, your engagement is essential. Sessions are curated for active sharing and discussions that draw in multiple perspectives.

  • Flexible spaces. No amphitheatres or classrooms here. We bring people together in a variety of ways through the day, often in circles, rarely around tables. We shapeshift to shape new ideas.

  • Intentional design. Sessions are crafted to weave experiences and learning over the course of multiple days. What happens at the beginning sets the stage for the fruits that emerge at the end and beyond.

  • Relationships + Content. Convenings are about connecting people in ways that make more possible. Activities invite play to spark creativity and learning.

  • Holistic + Diverse. Convenings mix it up to avoid echo chambers and groupthink. We assemble as many perspectives in a system as possible so that we can put our pieces together and become greater than the sum of our parts.

Encouragements

  • Be courageous – share successes and failures; initiate bold action and adapt to change before things are broken

  • Practice humility – be humble in the face of complexity; value people and social learning as a process

  • Integrate perspectives – actively seek out other voices, examine assumptions, and consider multiple worldviews

  • Co-create from diversity – lean into creative tension and listen for opportunities to bridge differences

  • Steward the future – hold the bigger picture in view, tell the long-term story

  • Cultivate the ecosystem – think relationally, act in service of collective flourishing

  • Foster synergies – champion cross-functional teams and inter-organizational collaborations

Our Previous Convenings

2025 Annual Convening held in Naivasha, Kenya

2023 Annual Convening held in Capetown, South Africa

2022 Annual Convening held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

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