|
|
From: Marco Caceres
Category: Volunteer
Date: 1/16/99
Time: 11:35:12 AM
Remote Name: 207.172.52.11
In the same way you think of a hammer or a computer as a tool, I suggest you should also think of the ProjectHonduras homepage as a tool. If the first thing that comes to your mind when you access our homepage is..."Mmm, now how can I use this?"...then we the designers of the homepage will know we've done our job.
The ProjectHonduras homepage is not a chat line. It is not meant to provide news, current events or reference data for the pure sake of informing. It is not a marketing or promotional site. There are so many other great places to visit on the World Wide Web for these sort of things. As a matter of fact, we've provided a selection of these places in our USHondurasLinks section.
While certainly this homepage will, to some extent, perform all the functions I've just told you it is not meant to, the focus remains..."How to use this information".
The beauty of the Internet is that it is the quintessential tool for communication and organization, which are two of the big ingredients for "getting things done". Before the Internet, communication and organization were a lot more problematic, more time-consuming, more expensive, physically more of an effort. This is not the case anymore.
The Internet is a new and powerful tool which is being widely used by companies to expand their business. It is obviously working. Sending e-mails and attached files is as common as making phone calls or using postal services. They are cheaper and faster. I get press releases, thank you notes, annual reports, invitations, inquiries, quarterly financial updates, opinions, introductions...all through the Internet.
Websites are also becoming a staple of our economy. What smart business person will not have a presence on the World Wide Web? On January 12, 1999, Network Solutions, Inc. of Herndon, VA announced that it registered approximately 1,911,000 net new domain names in 1998, nearly double the 1997 total of 960,000 net new registrations.
Here's the point... If companies are using the Internet to expand, why can't countries like Honduras use the Internet to develop?
Obviously, the Honduran Government is already using the Internet to communicate and to promote its products, its resources. Honduran companies are doing the same. My worry is that there is no coordination of efforts. Is there an entity (or entities) out there looking at the big picture of Honduran development and actively using the Internet as a tool for finding solutions to the wide range of problems Honduras faces? I honestly don't know, but I suspect not.
I submit that the first way in which Honduras can use the Internet is to identify all of its human resources, particularly those people that are in positions to help. Creating a new, selfless, powerful, and inter-connected constituency for Honduras could make a difference. This has never been done before.
The ProjectHonduras homepage can be part of this process.
TheNetwork section, for example, is essentially the beginnings of a new constituency for Honduras. By providing information such as "Profession" and "Position/Expertise", this section allows you to properly match people with certain needs in Honduras. By providing "Company/Organization" and "University/College" information, TheNetwork identifies potentially valuable entities whose substantial additional resources could be tapped.
Finally, "Location" and "E-mail/Homepage" allows you to get in touch with people discretely and perhaps encourage you to meet personally. As the TheNetwork grows, it will be interesting to see where the geographic concentrations will be.
There are two sections of the ProjectHonduras homepage which provide what I call "hard information" which can inspire ideas for getting involved in Honduras-helping ways. Business&AidWatch and the ProjectsPage. The ProjectsPage is a given. This section simply provides a list of efforts related to Honduras in which you might wish to participate or lead.
The Business&AidWatch section demands some creativity on your part. It basically tracks any activity that involves the exchange of money and(or) other types of valuable support involving Honduras and other national governments, companies, organizations, etc. The key here is to begin to understand who in this world has an economic interest in Honduras.
One obvious way you can utilize Business&AidWatch is to simply start identifying some trends. For instance, are there certain organizations that can be counted on to lend money or give aid to Honduras? Or are there certain types of companies that are investing in the country, for better or for worse? Bear in mind that it is this kind of economic activity that can have a tremendous impact on a small, poor country like Honduras.
One of starkest trends I see, for example, is that there is a lot of mining be done in Honduras by North American companies. I know I know...this is nothing new. Mining predates banana cultivation as a major industry in Honduras. Still, you'd think we'd get tired of seeing our country stripped and move on to something else! Let's have a little vision, for god's sake.
If Honduras had an educated population like, say...Costa Rica? Maybe we'd see less mining companies investing in the country and more hi-tech companies. I just finished reading an article in an old issue of Plants Sites & Parks magazine which convinced me of this. The article was about Intel Corp.'s decision to locate four new state-of-the-art plants in Costa Rica
Let me share part of this somewhat painful article with you...
"Foremost was the stunning realization that Intel will eventually manufacture one-third of its microprocessors, the Pentium Pro, Pentium MMX and SEC memory-integration devices, in Costa Rica. State-of-the-art microprocessors in Costa Rica? Yes, Costa Rica, known more for its splendid rainforest than a high-tech silicon forest.
Moreover, when the Intel plants come on line in mid-1998, they will make an enormous difference in Costa Rica's economy and in the way that small (population 3.5 million) nation is perceived by the outside world. Almost immediately, the new plants will be exporting electronic components worth almost as much as Costa Rica earns selling bananas, its most famous export.
Soon after the Intel announcement, an executive of Romec Co., a U.S.-based industrial waste-processing company, declared that it was proceeding with an analysis that would likely lead it to Costa Rica.
Other companies, too, are gradually discovering the country's merits as a site for value-added, light manufacturing. Motorola, which has been in Costa Rica since 1979, intends to increase its Costa Rican work force to 1,800 in the near future, up from the current 1,300. Conair opened its second Costa Rican hair-dryer plant last June; it now manufactures four other products there and employs 3,000 workers. Protek, a Sarasota, Fla., maker of electronic components, now employs sixty workers in Costa Rica, nearly half its entire work force of 145. 'The Costa Rican work force is well-educated and literate,' says a Protek executive. 'In the U.S. we were unable to get the workers we needed, but being in Costa Rica has allowed us to grow.'
None of this is entirely surprising to those who know the real Costa Rica. Rather than build up a large standing army, Costa Rica abolished the military in 1948, and spent heavily on educating its population. For decades, it was the only democracy in Central America. 'Costa Rica is a unique place,' notes Edward McCallum, managing principal of Fluor Daniel Consulting, and a specialist in relocation. 'It has a huge percentage of people who speak English, and it has comfortable living conditions.' Costa Rica's adult literacy rate of 93% is 'higher than that of the United States,' adds Sylvia Cowan, director of training and development at Bennett Associates, an international consulting firm.
As early as the 1980s, Costa Rica also turned its back on 'import substitution,' a development strategy that protected inefficient local industries throughout Latin America. Instead, it substituted liberalization for protection. Under a program of 'structural adjustments' supported by the World Bank, Costa Rica has worked diligently toward stimulating its export sector, especially in 'non-traditional" products. The government has also transferred a wide range of state-owned companies to private ownership. There are no longer any restrictions on capital repatriation, and the local currency, the colon, is freely convertible.
With all these assets, Costa Rica has enjoyed consistent growth during this decade, averaging more than 5 percent each year since 1990. 'I draw the parallel with the Netherlands,' says McCallum. 'Costa Rica is becoming the evolving trading hub of Central America.'
Of course an educated populace alone is not enough. Ya gotta have a descent infrastructure, which Honduras does not have (especially now), to attact foreign investment from modern industries. But it's a helluva step forward.
What you as an individual can do with the information in Business&AidWatch may be nothing or it could take the form of very practical things such as deciding whether or not to buy stock in a company which deals with Honduras. Or write to your Congressional representatives regarding US Government funding for certain international organizations which tend to favor Honduras.
A nice touch, I think, would be if all the Hondurophiles in this world sent e-mails or wrote letters to those companies and organizations that have provided aid to Honduras following Hurricane Mitch. Good PR often goes a long way. It's one thing for President Flores' office to send out thank you letters (assuming this is being done). It's quite another if thousands of Hondurophiles take the initiative.
Along with Business&AidWatch, the USHondurasLinks section provides another quick-and-easy way to contact a variety of groups, companies, and organizations involved with Honduras in some way. We've simply saved you some research time on the Net. That's all.
Lastly, the What'sHot! and OpenForum sections are sources for "soft information". They are designed more to encourage dialogue and to build a sense of comraderie amongst those visiting our homepage. On occasion these sections may provide information that could encourage you to attend a meeting in your area or to write a letter thanking someone for what they've done or will do for Honduras.
There is nothing particularly brilliant about any one thing I've mentioned. It only starts to become brilliant if large numbers of people start to implement some of these few humble suggestions, along with their own ideas. This homepage can be one tool for you to use and start turning into that new Honduran constituency (...paragraph nine).
www.holyrosarychurch.org/projecthonduras.htm