Chair: Soenke Zehle (Incommunicado, Germany)
Participants: Lisa McLaughlin (University of Illinois, USA): Cisco Systems, the United Nations, and the Corporatization of Development; Michael Gurstein (New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA): Critiquing Apple Pie: What We Can Say and Not Say About the UN These Days; Manuel Acevedo (consultant, Spain): ICT4D partnerships at face value: experiences from the multilateral trenches; Steve Cisler (librarian, USA): PPPP: problems of public-private partnerships
Initially a pannel session this was turned into an open discussion about ICT corporations at the UN, public/private partnerships, and how to maintain a high level of accountability.
documented by Andreea
Short Presentation from Participants
Lisa McLaughlin (University of Illinois, USA) started off by talking about the political economy of transnational space, her focus being mainly on hardware mostly.
-cisco systems, writing a lot of policy at un, troubling
-women as targets of development
-gender at the wsis: how do women operate in a space such as wsis
-private/public partnership
-women seen strictly as information labourers : consumers, labour markets, obsolete otherwise
follows cisco systems (largest router maker in the world): they teach people to make/use/repair only their product : creation of captive labor
Manuel Acevedo (consultant, Spain) involved with cisco in 2 different programs put internet at surface of reducing poverty
-partnerships are in development, not business
-transparency, accountability
it doesn’t serve un to envolve corporations on pilot projects (1-2 year lifespan)
Steve Cisler (librarian, San Jose, USA)
-public/private parternship at apple
-how to differentiate between corporations (some might be monolithic, and the groups that can be worked with within corporations)
Michael Gurstein (New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA)
-former staff member for UN (consultant)
about the UN and how the UN should be seen
-UN a very small institution c. 10.000 comparatively; not a monolithic agency, relatively slight in areas like policy
-at the UN consequence to actions aren’t always well thought through, not a lot of reflection, not a lot of inter-linking to longer historical process policies
-the UN has been seen as a mother for the not for profit community
because it seemed to be welcoming to ngo community and initiative
-a lot of compromises made on a variety of levels : state, corporate
-should be subject to same type of critical assessment, ideological, etc.
-detached perspectives that one subjects other similar size/etc type orgs/govts.
-has gone through major ideological shifts in last 10 years
-wanted to turn the UN develop program into a consulting firm
open discussion
iicd south america for icd. private/public partnership in order to get financing; how to approach big corporations without selling your soul for projects in the 3rd world?
lisa: some people love the un too much, they idealize it. it’s a very complicated mix of individuals
while there are some universal documents, the un itself isn’t either all bad or all good…
promoters & products of neoliberal capitalism and economic arrangement
part of an ongoing ideology rather than a manipulative force
human rights isn’t different from what their doing, because they see themselves as motivation; they make human rights discourse for neoliberal globalization
more possibilities of getting to people at UN rather than big corps.
not sure if one can go very far with the private sector, the un needs to be empowered, by people who understand themselves as transnational citizens
new comment: UN cannot be looked as any other org. the history of the un and why it came into existence and what it is now UN takes from all world governments and by default takes from their legitimacy to create its own.
UN is in a huge crisis, un as a consulting agency can be used for a partnership as a contractual partnership
court going partnership
trust, communication/process
defining partnership and finding what can be done
1) what are the indicators as far as development criterias
2) non exclusive contracts/partnership wtih private sector by UN, IICD;
steve: library/gates foundation research of USA foundation
in the USA 25% of libraries sponsored by the Gates foundation were not going to be able to continue their program because of sustainability issues
SUSTAINABILITY
who are you dealing with? divisions sales/marketing people (make their numbers as goal)
look at projects, in order to sell
business develop. group : pov-con, selling to the bottom of the pyramid, huge markets if you know how to deal with them they can open new opportunities. use donations to open up markets (used by hardware/telecom companies).
research & develop group: getting beta-testers, a bit more free, in a particular way
community affairs group (corporate responsibility) : part of public r. where companies implement corp responsibillity plans
regulated monopolies
CEO’s office : big promises
individual angel : insider who can support you such as econet/labornet
lisa: some individuals are true believers (from corporations).. not always about manipulating or making targets; they are true missionaries of global capitalism.. didn’t matter about the power wielded by their institutions
michael: how do you make an effective partnership? trust, but verify
corporations are very often using the rhetoric of the UN to say that they are developing good partnership, but ignored the real issues, to negative longterm consequences
civil society/ngo community has real role and responsibility to present real recommendations
recognize taht un is in corporate relationships and should be accountable/responsible just like corporate accountability
manuel: un is a system, not an agency, not one entity
development side such as unicef
politics/peace : kofi annan
the UN sometimes resembles a govt, but also not
sometimes UN agencies don’t cooperate
not sure if there is a possibility for exclusivity
UN is not about finances, but about policy
needs to involve private sector, to show that they have a stake in development because it iwll mathc some of their interests
what is partnership?
an association freely done with clear objectives where the objective is to support human development (expanding the options of people), if it goes against public good, or limits freedoms than it cannot be included in a partnership
sharo brown politician
montevideo uruguay sometimes a lot of money is spent in things that are a total failure
questions : appropriation (public issues/gender appropriated to further corp. interests)
whether there are examples ngos/civil society orgs enter such partnerships suceed in appropriating these interests for their own interests.
private sectoer tentities battling one another in their jordan school initiative
formalizing accountability
first critique of undp came from southern oss
one thing lacking in the UN is efficiency/effectiveness
corporate accountability
network accountability
astroturf org (seemingly nonprofit but promotes causes of corp. interest) not true grassroots
take into account monopoly
CISCO owns 90/95% ownership of routing industry worldwide
have no competition
anything with UN is exclusive by default because they do the routing for the UN
peopels’ choices fly out the window with monopoly regulations
best example of appropriation a company CISCO
gender mainstreaming
digital divide
perfect for knowledge eco, where access fto tech is seeing as empowering in adn of itself.
perfected public/private partnership
some projects will fail
sometime critical judgement is suspended
there is an inbalance of power between ngo/civil society & corporations
crude way of forming relatinoships, unsophisticated
some bad longterm relationships
new projects, start projects with partners with experience to have an even playing ground
new cisco project – e-ethiopia
critique private/public partnership from an intellectual property side
observatory where various partners participate to monitor different experiences/results
most powerful movement in ict is open source
e-learning staffed by volunteers as floss
if you learn with ict you need to learn to deal with private sector because of hardware (which are mixed, which will be mostly proprietary; mixed environment)
issues will become even more accute, we’ll be facing them with more resources behind them; microsoft will try to move into governmental/public sector
documented by Andreea