Deirdre Williams wrote:

>On a related (?) issue this morning the BBC news was reporting the
>publication of the Red Cross report on disaster management. One of
>the major concerns was the impediment and wastage caused by rivalry
>among different aid agencies.
>On CIVIC this week we saw the announcement of a "regional" meeting
>of ICT people in Barbados, with plans to create something just like
>CIVIC, which appeared not to acknowledge that CIVIC already exists.
>The ethic of the internet has been based on sharing almost since the
>internet began, but now the word "transparency" is used to hide the opaque. :-(

Out of the public eye, I did correspond with some NGOs and aid
agencies during the Katrina catastrophe in the context of SMS
messenging and communications/disaster management. There was a lot of
what Deirdre describes on many different levels - and that also
includes the volunteered resources. I also saw the same with the
South East Tsunami, specifically with the Alert Retrieval Cache
project. The tsunami efforts really had a negative effect on the way
I saw NGOs and disaster agencies, and that had been a motivating
factor in the 6 months after it. But things change.

My experience has lead me to the perspective that those that operate
behind closed doors are not relevant to me. They typically solve
nothing but the massaging of their own egos, which I suppose is
necessary and also keeps them out of the way of the people who want
to make real progress. I say let them amuse themselves in their
ego-orgy; to be angry with that demonstrates the same level of
thinking and is counterproductive.

Someday, they might catch up with us. And then they may pose a problem. :-)

But none of the groups in the region are ahead of MISTICA, CIVIC or
anything along those lines - not even the CARICOM Secretariat. We
should keep our eyes ahead. If the people who follow fall into holes
that we clearly marked, that is not our problem.

Taran Rampersad
Nearby Thu Oct 6 09:45:03 2005