Now in Spanish
CIAT has four official languages. However, we must recognize that Spanish, among them, has a position of “first among equals”. In the organization, 45% of the member countries have Spanish as their official language, to which we can add countries where Spanish is frequently used, such as Aruba or Curacao, or countries with a considerable number of Spanish speakers, such as the United States, Canada, Brazil, Portugal, France or Morocco. Moreover, with the notable exception of Equatorial Guinea, all countries that have Spanish as their official language are CIAT members. It is also worth noting that of the 17 founding countries of CIAT, 15 are Spanish-speaking. It can be confirmed that Spanish is in the DNA of the organization, the acronym CIAT remains the same in all four languages.
When we conceived the book “ ICT as a Strategic Tool to Leapfrog the Efficiency of Tax Administrations”, in the framework of the grant with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we knew that its original publication would be in English because our approach was towards a global panorama. It made sense, and a lot. The CIAT Secretariat was at the helm of the “flagship report“. The creation of a document as a public good, with the aim of sharing information with areas of the world beyond the borders of Latin America, as it was needed.
That is why, in March, the original English version of the book was available not only for free download in our library, but also in several online stores. At the time of writing this post, from our library, it has been downloaded just over 2,100 times. The set of countries of origin of these downloads covers all continents and includes 97 countries that do not have Spanish as their official language.
Today, contrary to our common practice to publish long texts first in Spanish and then in English, we are happy to share now the Spanish version of our reference publication “Las TIC como Herramienta Estratégica para Potenciar la Eficiencia de las Administraciones Tributarias“. Like the original, this version will be available for download in PDF format, as well as in ebook formats for mobile devices.
The book was designed to allow being read in separate chapters or in any order. It is not that it occurred to the editors to emulate Cortázar and his Rayuela, it is that we know that people’s interests can be focused on some topics: strategic, purely technological, management or tax processes.
Therefore, after it was available in English, a series of posts were published on this Blog, visiting the content of each chapter, written by its authors, each in its own style, with the intention, we confess, to encourage them to read the chapter or to browse it. Those posts can be found here:
And in the spirit of total marketing, we inform you that it is not over. There’s more. Much more!
Over the course of these two months, we developed a set of webinars in English to share and review some of the ideas and experiences highlighted in the book. Now we have the great joy of being able to repeat the experience, in clear Spanish, and with some variation, whether in the panelists or themes. The truth is that webinars are a total pleasure. The idea was born before the arrival of the pandemic but, obviously, consolidated and is today an excellent way to exchange with authors, panelists and our CIAT community. We invite you to register and watch them, live or in some free time on our YouTube channel.
Disruptive technologies in tax administration
August 18, 2020
The importance of electronic invoicing during COVID-19
August 20, 2020
Why improving the tax administrations?
September 02, 2020
We, Socorro and Raul, over the years, have always joked comparing the accuracy of a translation with the original document. If it’s Spanish to English, there are times when one thinks of Celia Cruz, the guarachera of Cuba, and realizes that the “English is not very good looking“. We do not fall into the temptation of translating everything, some concepts are so well known today by their original name that, when trying to translate them, we run the risk of losing substance. The extensive process of translating the document and its final editing required hard work of revision by the team of editors, so that the document did not sacrifice too much fidelity and readability. You, the readers, particularly those who encourage to have both editions on hand, will be able to tell us if we did a decent job.
Greetings, good luck, good reading and, remembering Celia, “Azucar!”
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