For Spanish speakers, the word “think tank” may give the impression of something war-related. But the translation of this term has more to do with creativity: it is an “idea bank” in which discussions, analyses and proposals are generated. Funredes, APC member in the Dominican Republic, is in the process of transition towards work which, in its words, “will involve more reflection than action.” Nevertheless, this also implies a militant aspect: confronting anyone necessary in order to bring an ethical view on information and communication technologies into the development world. APCNews spoke with Funredes’ director, Daniel Pimienta, about the new focus of the organisation during the workshop on ICT policies in Latin America and the Caribbean organised by APC in Montevideo in November 2006.
APCNews: We know Funredes is undergoing many changes. What are they all about?
Daniel Pimienta (DP): Right now we are in transition towards becoming a think tank (group for study, consultancy and education). This means that after carrying out so many projects over the last 18 years, at this stage of Funredes’ development we feel that the time has come to teach other people how to put them into practice. We want to transmit the know-how acquired in 18 years of project development. This change will involve more reflection than action. Before we had more action than reflection, although, of course, both were present. We are going to focus more on education, public policies, and on generating documents on various issues. We also want to have closer ties to the academic community. One of the successes of MISTICA (a virtual community developed by Funredes) has been the ability to bring together activists and academics and to build bridges between them. We want to continue in this vein, making academics more activist and activists more academic…
APCNews: As part of this new emphasis on reflection, Funredes published a study a while ago on South-South cooperation. What were its main conclusions?
DP: It is quite a corrosive study. We related numerous internal discussions that had been taking place in Funredes for many years. It is a document that talks about the ethics of cooperation. It presents well-documented and strong criticisms on the way in which cooperation is carried out. It concludes that if the information society is itself a change in paradigm, the first paradigm that has to change is that of cooperation. And this is not happening. It has been a very delicate process. To tell someone who funds your projects that what they do is not very ethical… for the most part they do not like to hear such things.
APCNews: Another area that Funredes emphasises heavily is linguistic diversity. From what perspective do you approach this?
DP: We developed a tool through which we measure the impact of language and culture on the internet. More than an observatory, it is a starting point for supporting linguistic diversity on the web [1]. Along with UNESCO we published a study that explains, through solid methodology, where the internet is going in terms of languages. We have been working on this for many years, lone voices crying out in the desert, and the issue has attracted the attention of many international organisations. It is a great paradox but, today, a small NGO in the Dominican Republic is still the only one producing reliable data, documented with transparency, on the space of languages on the internet.
APCNews: And what conclusions have you reached?
DP: We have new information but have not published it yet. The methodological work is very serious and before publishing results, we have to understand what is happening. We use search engines, and they constantly change the results. The new data indicates that Spanish is coming back. Over the last two years Spanish had declined as compared to French, and there was a dip in the advance of Spanish. Apparently the presence of this language is growing once again. This confirms the steady, sustained decline of English, a phenomenon that is hidden through the active complicity of many communications media and the passive complicity of some international organisations. It is no trifling matter: to think that English will forever be the dominant language on the web conspires against the motivation for each language to have its own space there. The first obstacle to overcome in the production of content in local languages is located in the minds of the potential producers. This myth of the 80% presence of English on the web (actually it is less than 35% in terms of internet users and less than 45% in terms of web pages) is not at all helpful!
1 Funredes belongs to the Governing Board of the World Network for Linguistic Diversity, chaired by Adama Samassekou, which brings together the top specialists on the subject.
Photo: Daniel Pimienta of Funredes.
