FUNREDES CLOSES LOCAL OPERATION IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Networks & Development Foundation (FUNREDES), a pioneer NGO working in the field of ICT4D since 1988, is suspending its operation in Dominican Republic as a consequence of:
FUNREDES will maintain its Think Tank activities, with headquarters in Dominican Republic, and will continue to manage its current project commitments with its usual level of quality. Funredes will immediately start seeking global funds to support its projects at Dominican local level (mainly oriented towards civil society and citizen digital literacy).
While UNDP.ORG supports multi-stakeholder partnerships, UNDP.DO understands multi-stakeholder partner cheap! Civil society may have to learn something about this story so we will offer more details in two following mails.
CHRONOLOGY
1995: |
Funredes closed its operation in Dominican Republic as a consequence of UNDP.DO taking control of its network project (REDID) on the name of sustainability and leaving the bill of past year operation unpaid. Funredes, although severely weakened, continued, from its headquarters in DR, its regional and global actions and progressively retook its place in the regional field.
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2003: |
Funredes reopened its activities in DR with the http://socinfodo.org.do project (a digital literacy project focusing CSOs) with support of the Dominican regulator, INDOTEL, in the framework of a Telecom Social Fund.
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2003: |
Funredes coordinated a project funded by UNDP to create a methodology for MSP to be applied in national strategies for IS. The project was presented at the INSTITUTE@WSIS (http://www.ict-4d.org/exhiconf_forum_inst.htm) Its outcomes are published at http://wsis.funredes.org.
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10/2003: |
Funredes accepted to join the Core Team for e.Dominicana (http://www.edominicana.gov.do/fase.htm), the national strategy, and to apply the methodology. Five months of hard work were realized in collaboration with the rest of team (composed by one INDOTEL consultant, one UNDP staff, two Funredes consultants and another freelance consultant, under the management of INDOTEL)
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1/2004: |
FUNREDES resigned from the Core team since key elements of the vision were left aside as a reaction of the difficulties which occurred in the first key multi-stakeholders meeting, which was not managed by UNDP according to the defined methodology. FUNREDES however maintained a good civil society relationship with the ongoing process. This happened in the midst of a Dominican Presidential election.
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8/2004 - 8/2005: |
Funredes asked the bill to be paid and look for local funds to launch the SOCINFODO phase 2 project.
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8/2005: |
FUNREDES closed its operation in DR as a consequence of UNDP.DO negation to pay for the work accomplished.
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COMMENTS
Ten years after it has done it for the first time, UNDP.DO, plays the same role weakening a civil society player in surprising contradiction with the UNDP stated global policy. First time, in the name of sustainability a network sustained during 4 years is destroyed and a sustainable NGO is weakened. Second time, an NGO working under UNDP umbrella for multi-stakeholder partnership is treated as a cheap partner and is weakened. In both case UNDP has a stated global policy (which FUNREDES agrees upon), but the local representatives execute a different policy.
In this late case, the role of local UNDP was to allow a MSP process to survive an electoral process and be warrant of political continuity of a national strategy in spite of change of the political party in charge with the government.
This seriously opens the question of the dichotomy between UNDP policies at global vs. local level.
The official argument of INDOTEL for negating the payment is: "there was no formal contract". The non official argument from UNDP.DO is: "you should have asked for payment before the government change". Lack of institutionalism, which is one of the regrettable characteristic of developing countries, is not a novelty; however, that UNDP is sharing such concept is an interesting enough innovation to be signaled and discussed.
Basic lesson to be learned for other CSOs: MSP can be lethal for civil society, especially dealing with UNDP at local level.
All details in http://funredes.org/undp.do
FUNREDES hopes this documentation would motivate ICT4D research community to study the case and to help learning some lessons and remains available to answer any question about this matter. All following events, including possible reactions from UNDP will be documented in the same page.
FUNREDES has absolutely no interest in opening a controversy in Dominican Republic; its only motivation in documenting the case are global: