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MISTICA: Re: Development Gateway ICT4D Topic Community

From: Rosa Maria Torres ([email protected])
Date: Mon Apr 15 2002 - 15:18:22 AST

I find this discussion about World Bank's Global Development Gateway very
useful, and will make sure it reaches individuals and groups beyond the
MISTICA list. Too bad its must be conducted in English (as usual, we -
Spanish-speakers- are the ones who must accommodate to English-speakers;
maybe now we can switch to Spanish so that more people in this list can read
it and participate in it?). Too bad also that we are discussing these issues
with a consultant who clarifies he is not a spokesperson for WB's GDG. We
trust that he will share these concerns and this discussion with those who
act as spokepersons.

Daniel wrote in one of his messages: "Everybody agrees that the new paradigm
is about bottom-up and capillarity (self-empowering of communities) but the
blood keeps going top down to the arterias, with, in many times, a subtle
(or less subtle) way to select the veins to inject..."

On the issue of "capillarity" - in the sense not necessarily of empowering
but of being spread all over the place - I continue to be amazed at the
capillarity the WB has achieved in almost of spheres related to
"development" of "developing countries". The years when the WB related only
to governments are gone; now and increasingly it deals directly not only
with organizations of civil society (still, mainly NGOs) but also with "the
poor" (see the centrality given in recent WB dicourse to its "Voices of the
Poor" project). Once you scratch a bit in the web, you may find the WB one
or at most two clicks of the mouse away from the first click, as funder,
partner, animator, sponsor, of many local, national and international
initiatives that do not show WB's involvement on the surface. This is very
much the case of initiatives related to ICTs. InfoDev, the Information for
Development Program of the World Bank Group (many people might not even know
this affiliation of InfoDev), is behind numerous initiatives, programmes and
projects, and promotes (together with the International Institute for
Communication and Development, established in 1997 by the Netherlands
Minister for Development Co-operation) the annual ICT stories competition
that has attracted many people and funded several projects that we have seen
mentioned in this list.

Once you "get involved" with a funder, the WB or any other (there are of
course exceptions), in one way or another, you can no longer adopt a
critical attitude and voice it openly. This has become a most tricky and
critical problem of "international cooperation for development". Grants and
loans have become a big trap for both governments and civil society in
developing countries. The Global Gateway is just an example of such trap.

Saludos,
Rosa Maria
www.fronesis.org

Nota de la moderaci�n: Tiene toda la raz�n Rosa Maria de sugerir pasar
ahora al castellano
en relaci�n con este tema de discusi�n. La elecci�n del ingl�s para
responder se ha hecho
de manera espontanea sin pensarlo mucho como una forma de cortes�a al
iniciador de la discusi�n,
y por supuesto, cada uno queda libre de utilizar el idioma de su
preferencia ... y de tratar de entender
la pobre calidad de las traducciones sin revisi�n que enviamos en la lista
Mistica-T :-)

Muy interesante y delicado lo que brinda a colaci�n Rosa Maria: "cuando uno
queda involucrado con una
fuente de proyectos, sea WB o otro, es muy dificil mantener una actitud
cr�tica y expresarla abiertamente"...
Hablamos hace un tiempo de la necesidad de una �tica de la colaboraci�n en
el seno de las organizaciones
de la sociedad civil. Ah� se trata de une �tica relacional frente a las
fuentes de financiamiento...

La paradoja que afrentan las ONG es de vivir en un seudomercado triangular
donde reciben fondos
de fuentes bi o multilaterales para ayudar terceros con proyectos que esos
ultimos no evaluan.

Muchas veces los objetivos "pol�ticos" de las ONG son distintos de los que
financian. Dentro de esos casos
suele haber una culminaci�n de paradoja con ONGs luchando contra la forma
economica dominante (neoliberalismo)
y recibiendo fondos de entes que defenden esta forma econ�mica y en todo
caso dentro de una transacci�n que
responde a esos mismos criterios econ�micos.

La primera forma de libertad consiste a formular sus propios proyectos en
funci�n de sus criterios en vez de aplicar a los criterios de las fuentes.

La segunda forma de libertad seria la que expresa Rosa Maria: la libertad
de criticar libremente los que nos financian.

La ultima forma de libertad podria ser de dar prevalencia a los criterios
de evaluaci�n de los que se benefician de los proyectos en vez de los que
lo financian...

No hay la minima duda que esas formas de libertad al expresarse son muy
costosas para la sostenibilidad
del proyecto social de las ONG que la practican (hablamos con experiencia
en Funredes ... :-) ).

Se habla mucho de cambio de paradigma para la nueva sociedad de la
informaci�n (o del conocimiento).
�No ser�a una prioridad de contemplar un cambio de paradigma del modelo de
la cooperaci�n internacional?
�No ser�a esta prioridad un prerequisito para abrir posibilidad a un cambio
de paradigma societal en el Sur?

Gracias a John Daly por desencadenar una reflexi�n de esta naturaleza.

Este archivo fue generado por hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 07 2003 - 14:02:42 AST