What does it mean, in practice, to reinforce the “digital transformation” of a one-party state with a documented history of severe restrictions on civil liberties?
MIAMI, United States. – A tender published on the Public Sector Contracting Platform of Spain sets at 2,300,000 euros the estimated value and the base budget for a contract to supply and install servers and network equipment in order to strengthen the technological infrastructure of the “Electronic Government Platform” headed by the Cuban public administration.
The file, processed by the General Secretariat of the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIAP), places the project within “Cuba Digital” and specifies that it is “financed by the European Union.”
The official tender announcement, dated December 18, describes the object of the contract as “mixed contracting for the supply, delivery and installation of servers and network equipment to strengthen the technological infrastructure of the Electronic Government Platform led by the Cuban public administration.”
In the associated technical specifications, FIAP details that the contract seeks to provide the main infrastructure of “a new Data Center in Cuba”, which would include “hardware equipment (processing servers, data storage systems, network electronics and cabling)”, software licenses and services such as installation, initial support and training.
The document adds that all of this is “intended to strengthen the Electronic Government platform in Cuba within the framework of the international cooperation project ‘Cuba Digital NDICI LA/2022/44160’, financed by the European Union.”
The document also frames the operation in the official strategy of the Cuban State. In this sense, it indicates that “the Government of Cuba is immersed in a process of digital transformation of its public administration”, and maintains that the “Cuba Digital” project aims to “support the Cuban State in the creation of capabilities and infrastructure for digital government.”
According to the text itself, the new data center “will house the applications, services and data necessary to digitize government procedures and offer online services to citizens.”
FIAP, for its part, presents on its website a cooperation project European Union in Cuba oriented to the “digital transition” of the public administration. In that file, the foundation indicates that “the European Union seeks to promote the digital transition of the Cuban public administration” and that the project seeks to strengthen digital tools to improve public services and administrative efficiency, in addition to including mentions of “inclusion”, “transparency” and “citizen participation.”
In Cuba, the official narrative about the digital government includes the platform Cubagobwhich, according to official Cuban mediais “in the final phase of organization and institutionalization.” Its purpose would be to facilitate “the management of government procedures and services online, with the use of payment and digital signature and government-citizen interaction.”
However, the tender has been surrounded by controversy in independent media and social networks, where Cuban Internet users have asked what it means, in practice, to reinforce the “digital transformation” of a one-party State with a documented history of severe restrictions on civil liberties, including the information ecosystem and the digital environment.
International organizations They have described Cuba as a “not free” country in assessments of political rights and civil liberties, and have noted repression of public criticism and dissent.
The official documents available on the public contracting platform do not detail—at least in the extracts consulted—which Cuban entities will directly operate the data center or how the final uses of that technological capacity will be audited, in terms of rights. They do make it clear, however, that the project is part of a European program identified as “Cuba Digital NDICI LA/2022/44160” and that the tender is promoted by FIAP from Spain.
