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		Knowledge is power. The World Bank's Development Gateway is a way of centralising and entrenching their power. Don't let them. PLEASE CIRCULATE AND SIGN THE DECLARATION BELOW. The declaration below has been written and endorsed by a spectrum of 'knowledge workers' - an unlovely term for people who research or discuss development issues in the media, in education and in other areas - who are deeply concerned with the implications of the Bank's new internet project. This declaration is unlike previous petitions against the Bank's initiative. There is no attempt to lobby the World Bank or alter the Gateway's structure or content. Previous such attempts have resulted in only marginal or cosmetic changes. Rather, this letter encourages people not to contribute to or use this Bank-backed scheme. The signatories of this letter have pledged to avoid any contact with the Bank's development gateway, and to push forward with their own diverse research and publication agendas, including independent internet schemes. This is a declaration that can be signed by anyone. Please mention any institutional affiliation when you sign -- which will be for informational and identification purposes and won't imply the endorsement of your organisation. Send a message to gateway@voiceoftheturtle.org with your name and organization in the subject line. Please distribute this call widely to your comrades, colleagues and contacts. If every recipient sends it to at least five people or lists, then we can soon achieve a broader coverage than the World Bank's hired PR company. This letter is mirrored at http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/topic/knowledgebank/gateway/, where a recent Bretton Woods Project briefing on the Gateway is also available. Raj Patel for The Voice of the Turtle The Development Gateway: A Declaration from Concerned Knowledge Workers Dear friends, In July the World Bank will launch a multi-million dollar internet-based development knowledge initiative at www.developmentgateway.org. Trumpeted as a place to find diverse perspectives on development, the Bank argues that its Development Gateway will be a convenient tool for civil society groups, officials, journalists and independent researchers. We disagree. On closer scrutiny, the Development Gateway initiative looks less like an attempt to encourage debate than a means to stifle, moderate and control dissenting opinion. We wish to warn colleagues of the perils of associating with or supporting this project. There are three fundamental objections to the Gateway project. First the gateway privileges certain voices over others. The Gateway does not prioritise poorer people as site contributors, editors or viewers. The Bank's heavy English-language bias exacerbates the dominance of official "development knowledge". You will not find topics on "political economy" or "inequality" or "discrimination", just concepts like "governance" and "human development". Moreover the Gateway's 130-issue taxonomy ghettoises cross-cutting issues such as gender and climate change. Second, the claim that the site is independent is untenable. This is a clear attempt by the Bank to consolidate itself and its allies as the main authorities on "development knowledge". This is reflected in both the content and process of the Gateway. For instance, in order to provide local content, the Gateway has its own country portals. These will be run by government officials, private business and civil society groups appointed without any clear criteria of representativeness. The content of these gateways will be policed. Within these country gateways, site contributors are told to avoid "country/locale specific events", and not to use metaphors, puns or irony in order "to aid machine translation". The Bank is appointing individual or institutional "topic guides" to filter and organise material in each of the site's subject areas. The Gateway is supposed to represent all perspectives and all types of analysis. The only reason to exclude items is if they fail to meet the site's "quality" criteria, yet it remains extremely unclear as to how this quality threshold is determined. And given the volume and diversity of information posted on the internet daily, it is unlikely that the guides' coverage will be comprehensive. With the best will in the world, then, the topic guides' selections will be biased in favour of the intellectual tastes of themselves and their contacts. The third, and most pernicious, effect of the development gateway is to undermine alternatives. Instead of encouraging existing initiatives, the Bank has chosen to centralise internet coverage of development issues in a bid to sift and control the flow of ideas. This is likely to distract from and damage the development of diverse, independent internet sites on these issues. This is why, in our individual capacities, we pledge to avoid all contact, whether official or otherwise, with the World Bank's Development Gateway. We encourage our colleagues to undertake a similar pledge, and to support alternative sources of knowledge. Signed (as individuals, organisation names provided for reference only) Initial signatories: Yash Tandon, International South Group Network, Zimbabwe Patrick Bond, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Phil McMichael, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Chris Brooke, Magdalen College, Oxford, UK Rutendo Kambarami, Communications Officer, Mwelekeo waNGO, Zimbabwe Further signatories Raj Patel, SEATINI, Zimbabwe Jamal Bouamama, assahafa.com, Morocco Tony Burdon, Oxfam International Glyn Everett, University of Bristol, UK Neil Watkins, Center for Economic Justice, Washington, DC, USA Tristi Tanaka, CorpWatch.org Christina Neall,Surrey BC,CA Debra Oliver, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA Jon Nissenbaum, Harvard University Dept. of Linguistics, Cambridge, MA, USA Alastair Thompson - Scoop Media - New Zealand Kathleen Williamson, Jubilee NW USA? Sarba Raj Khadka Executive Director Rural Reconstruction Nepal-RRN Deb Lagutaris Camille Chalmers - Haitian Advocacy Platform for an Alternaitve Development (PAPDA) - Ha�ti Dianne McQuillen ACLU, Amnesty International, Nation Associate and Peace Center Uddhav Raj Bhattarai ActionAid Nepal, Kathmandu Allison Dinsmore, ACT UP Philadelphia Katriona Street ActionAid Nepal. Cosmas Obote, Clare College, Cambridge University, UK Rasigan Maharajh, University of Manchester, UK Richard Worthington Earthlife Africa Jhb, South Africa Nicolas Dieltiens, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Carina van Rooyen, RAU, South Africa Alex Lopez, International Society for Ecology and Culture, UK Susan George, TNI Network, Netherlands Deborah Stern, School Administrator, United States Alejandrina Pliego Elisa Van Waeyenberge, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, UK James A. Ward Lawrence County Chapter of the AARP Julie Davids, Director, Critical Path AIDS Project Barbara Garson, author Money Makes The World Go Around: One Investor Tracks her Cash Through The Global Economy Zoe Young, University of Hull/Conscious Cinema, UK Scott Bonner, Idaho Media Project, Boise, Idaho, USA Jonathan Laurence, Center for European Studies, Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA Bruce Drew Prairie Island Coalition, USA Maggie (Women's International League for Peace & Freedom) USA Monica Narula, Sarai, CSDS, India David Leeman Steven Hewlett, University of Michigan Health Systems, USA Gavin Williams, St Peter's College, Oxford, UK Josephine Crawley Quinn, UC Berkeley, CA, USA Maurice Bazin, Science Educator, Florianopolis, Brazil Tony Avirgan, Economic Policy Institute Howard A. Pellett, Green Party of Skagit County Viktor Piorecky, Brno, Czech Republic Scott Robinson Univ Metropolitana, Mexico DF Gaurav Madan Students for Social Change Silver Spring, MD, USA Michel Chossudovsky Dept of Economics, University of Ottawa, Canada, K1N6N5 Bob Olsen, Toronto, Canada Hon. Francesco Martone Green Group Senate of the Republic, Italy Jeffery Ramsey Grand Environmental Services, USA EarthPillow, Dig-Factory.com Arts Collective, Austin, TX, USA K.Bhanumathi, Samata & mines, minerals & PEOPLE, India William G. Martin, Binghamton University, USA Michael West, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA Robert Chambers, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex,Brighton UK Andrew Patton Andrea Cornwall, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK Ronald Creagh, Universite Paul Valery, Montpellier, France Meredith Fort, Jubilee Northwest Coalition in Seattle, WA, USA Kay Dellinger James Keeley, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK Amy Guptill, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Irene Guijt, Communication and Innovation Studies, Wageningen University and Research Centre Francoise VANNI, Agir ici, Paris France Colleen Quinn Brady - The Legal Aid Society Christian Labadie, informal group, citation.thread.free.fr/prevges Osher Doctorow Ph.D. formerly and still intermittently in parts California State Universities and Community Colleges, CA, USA Michael Fredericksen, EnterpriseWorks Worldwide Deborah Bryceson, African Studies Centre, Leiden University, The Netherlands Dr Lyla Mehta, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK Masimba Biriwasha, Media Monitoring Project, Zimbabwe Rose Rudnitski, State University of New York, USA Andy Douglas, Iowa City, Iowa, USA David Sunderland, Director, Intermundia Alex Stroda, Students for Local Politics, Iowa, USA Megan Stucki, Wittenberg University STAND Martha London, Boston, MA, USA Sean Scullion, Sydney, Australia Celia Vinas Soren Ambrose, 50 Years Is Enough Network - Washington, DC USA Cecilia R. Vinas, Peacemaking Committee, Swarthmore Presbyterian Church, Swarthmore, PA., USA Mark M Giese William J.Appel, Metro Justice of Rochester, NY, USA Sylys Knackstedt, Peninsula Salmon Council Mary Ann Pajakowski Ben Price, PCAN President, USA Ben Fine, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Economic Policy for Southern Africa, SOAS, London, UK George Dor Alan Griffiths, Vic WTO Watch, Melbourne, Australia Stefano Prato, Society for International Development Dr. M. O. Arigbede; Nigeria Poverty Eradication Forum, (PERFORM) Ilana Blankman, Pomona College, Los Angeles, CA Ali M . Lallo Mary Turgi, Holy Cross International Justice Office, Notre Dame, IN, USA Mary Tiernan, Sisters of the Holy Cross Justice Comission,S�o Paulo,Brazil Robert Carlsten, Board member of Denver Justice & Peace Committee. Denver, CO, USA Steve Goodale, Amherst, MA, USA Ole Fjord Larsen, The United Peoples David Kuehn tom abeles, president sagacity, inc Malele Dodia, NGOeXCHANGE, Zambia/Lusaka Robert Torres, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA David Mozer, Washington State Africa Network, USA Sue Severin, Marin Friends Meeting - Peace & Social Concerns Committee Cecilia Luttrell, Centre for Social and Economic Research into the Global Environment, University of East Anglia, UK Maryellen Hayden, Thomas Merton Center Hannah Wittman, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Douglas E. Wingeier, emeritus professor, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary Martim Melo - University of Cape Town - South Africa Jim Dixon. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu OBAA Women of Color in the Arts Stephanie Horton seth dellinger, musician, brooklyn, ny, usa Tom Bankston, Photogenus.com Semih Bilgen, Middle East Technical University, Turkey. Charles F. Munat disorthodoxy.org Joceline MINERVE Nouvo Lizour Mauritius Peter Cotton, Researcher, Morgan Stanley John E. Coleman, Cornell University Phil Gasper, Notre Dame de Namur University, Belmont, CA, USA Dr Alistair Brown, Melbourne, Australia Joe Hertel Jeanne Curran, Ph.D. - California State University, Dominguez Hills Richmond L Gardner, Pennsylvania, USA Sushil Khanna, India2.Jamal Bouamama assahafa.com Morocco Tony Burdon Oxfam International Glyn Everett, University of Bristol Neil Watkins, Center for Economic Justice, Washington, DC, USA Tristi Tanaka, CorpWatch.org Christina Neall,Surrey BC,CA Debra Oliver, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA Jon Nissenbaum, Harvard University Dept. of Linguistics Alastair Thompson - Scoop Media - New Zealand Kathleen Williamson, Jubilee NW USA Sarba Raj Khadka Executive Director Rural Reconstruction Nepal-RRN Deb Lagutaris Camille Chalmers - Haitian Advocacy Platform for an Alternaitve Development (PAPDA) - Haiti Dianne McQuillen ACLU, Amnesty International, Nation Associate and Peace Center Uddhav Raj Bhattarai ActionAid Nepal, Kathmandu Allison Dinsmore, ACT UP Philadelphia, USA Katriona Street ActionAid Nepal. Cosmas Obote, Clare College, Cambridge University Rasigan Maharajh, University of Manchester, UK Richard Worthington Earthlife Africa Jhb, South Africa Nicolas Dieltiens, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Carina van Rooyen, RAU, South Africa Alex Lopez, International Society for Ecology and Culture, UK Deborah Stern, School Administrator, USA Alejandrina Pliego Elisa Van Waeyenberge, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK Sushil Khanna, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India Marcus P Barber The Better Results Business Soumya Ganapathy, Physicians for HUman Rights, Savannah, USA S.Michael Malinconico, School of Library & Information Studies, University of Alabama, USA Kevin Y. LI, Globalization Monitor, Hong Kong Aurel Duta MAMA TERRA / For Mother Earth-Romania & Global Network Against Weapons ans Nuclear Power in Space John Madill, Fountain Court Library, London, UK Gabor Takacs, Energy Club, Hungary Michael R. Meuser Stuart Maltin, New York Institute of Technology, NY, USA Chris Keene, Anti-Globalisation Network Donna Ruff, Building New Hope and Ruff Communications, Inc. Sandip Kalsy, Weta Digital, New Zealand Karen Brock, IDS, University of Sussex, UK Sreenath Vemulapalli (No organization) I Carballal, NRIL (UK) - org only for ref. purposes Patta Scott-Villiers, Institute of Development Studies, UK Michael Scott, Baltimore, USA Jack Thornburgh, Alberni Social Justice Group (Port Alberni, BC, Canada) Gavin Moorhead, University of Plymouth. Gayle Davies, Librarian, Sydney, Australia Ineke van der Maat Lelystad (NL) Web site developer Nathan Fenn, student Giovanni Flores, Italy Friederike Habermann, Germany John Wildman. Monash University, Australia Geral W. Sosbee, www.sosbeevfbi.com To sign, send a message to gateway@voiceoftheturtle.org with your name and organization in the subject line.








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