Renata,

Just a short comment here. "Political Will" is a term that can easily be misunderstood. There are structural issues in Cuba, but this is not the place for that discussion. While in Havana I cited the successful Transition Estonia digital/Internet strategy. Estonia stressed that political will includes clarity on the principles to be advanced/protected, as well as abandoning what the Estonians called "legacy thinking" and not just "legacy technology". Myanmar's recent transition from near zero access to over 50% (cell) access was also cited as a strategy for blending the interests of the old telecom system with the new realities of cellular networks. The bottom lines is that Political will has to embrace more than the why and what. Political will also has to embrace open space to explore how to execute the how. It is important to note that the Estonian transition was developed from within and not imported from outside, while benefiting from lessons learned elsewhere.

Sam L.


 Some On 29/03/2016 12:23 PM, Renata Aquino Ribeiro wrote:

Hi Sam

I took a pic of the 2 Cuban representatives here
https://twitter.com/renataaquino/status/714848891141808128

They were really vocal to the US Ambassador about agreements which would increase internet connectivity in the region so one can see the political will is there (i am assuming they are from government or CS advocates). Dialogue lines were open, the official line by the US govt included lines such as "internet is the democratization of power".

When someone from Spain asked about dialogue w/ China and Russia as well for privacy laws (lots of people from banks here and worried about EU on privacy), the ambassador talked about anticipating something on OECD.

So political will is all you see here. But, this in ambassador. If that will translate further...

All the best

Renata