Honduras is one of the poorest countries
in Central and South America but there's
a new idea about to be tried in Honduras
it's called a zed a privately run Zone
with legal economic and political
autonomy the laws are all in place
investors are lined up and ready to go
and the big questions about to be
answered will this actually
work this is not a model City this is
not best practices this
and randia the Zeds faced their fair
share of this sort of criticism early on
when their biggest proponent Economist
Paul RoR branded them Charter cities we
need to allow for the potential for
Partnerships between nations some
critics even worried that romer's ideas
amounted to nothing more than repackaged
colonialism cases where Nations work
together in effect de facto the way
China and Britain work together to build
first a little onclave of the market
model and then scale it throughout China
romer's idea to partner with host
Nations proved controversial and
unconstitutional RoR left the project
and the Honduran Congress revised the
law so that the Zeds would be run by
private entities instead of foreign
governments we have a reputation of
being a very corrupt country today it's
not so much ideological opposition to
capitalism or abstract concerns about
colonialism that makes most Hond and
skeptical it's something much more
ingrained and fundamental to hondan
society a distrust of the their own
national government I have this
suspicion of not knowing if they're
making these decisions because they
actually think it's the best thing
for uh Honduras or is there some other
kind of Interest behind Claudia Maria
Castro VA is a professor of law in San
Pedro Sula and says the details of the
plan remain murky and rais more
questions than answers for her what will
be my rights as a Honduras citizen will
I be allowed inside the zones perhaps
perhaps it's an easier way to get hands
on our natural resources for example
students in va's class also feel like
they just don't know enough about the
plan to give their full support it's
just that we don't trust the politicians
who's going to be ruling about that the
government because if it's a government
it's a failure system I have many many
questions about it like many doubts I
think it's good to be positive but you
also have to be realist maybe it's not
that we don't uh believe in this project
it's just that we think it's going to
happen and it's going to fail because of
the same thing that all the other
projects have failed before you have to
remember that when we began the
discussion on these uh zones we had just
began to to come out of a political
crisis the political crisis of 2009 this
whole effort is about moving away from
trusting individuals and creating the
institutions that can be trusted by by
the general public the problems that
exist are actually the reason why the
Za is necessary it's the instrument that
can attract the levels of investment and
create the number of jobs that Honduras
needs to escape from poverty Mark kugman
a board member on the committee
responsible for greenlighting of the
zones says the project may need time to
prove itself to Hondurans but the
governance in the zones will be the kind
that has proven itself over and over in
other parts of the world he calls the
idea institutional leap frogging
institutional leap frogging is to draw
upon what actually exists and is proven
usually it's things that are very old
it's things that are very familiar
there's a reason why the Honduran design
speaks of Anglo sax and common
law because it's essentially
internationally it's the standard but
even some people rooting for the success
of the Honduran EDS have reservations
about klugman's approach there are
aspects of the Honduran reform that
don't mirror certain Essences of the
startup City's the startup City's idea
one of the essence of uh of startup
thinking of course is that you need
multiple multiple different approaches
to the same problem so that one will
stick all of our eggs cannot be in
honduras's basket startup cities
Honduran Zeds Clan's leap zones Charter
cities are various Technologies I want a
more diverse conversation about these
techn Technologies so we can find uh the
best best path forward for billions of
human beings to say that this project
should be focused on things that are
experimental no sir the problems are
pretty clear you have a country where
every year 75,000 people essentially
risk their lives in many cases go into
debt with very dangerous criminal
organizations that will try and smuggle
them into the us a lot of them get on a
train called laesa and they have to hold
on to these rails on the train they're
riding outside the train they have to
hold on for hours and as happens they
get tired and if they let go or they
slip a lot of them will slip under the
train and will lose an arm or a leg I
mean that's a reality when you have so
many people living in a precarious
condition with such limited options that
the Bestia the Beast is their best
alternative right now my response to
people who say listen I've got a really
clever idea and I would love a place to
try it out and you guys I don't know how
you've done it but you've gotten this
thing done would you please try out my
cool and groovy idea what would you say
to them say listen I love your cool and
groovy idea um that's that's really not
on our to-do list right now will the
Zeds fall victim to cronyism and
business as usual as its critics fear or
will they outcompete the nation state as
the world's primary form of government
and alleviate Global poverty on a scale
never before seen as its most Ardent
Champions insist only time will tell but
as the project inches closer to reality
in the coming months we turn to actual
investors with money on the the line to
see what they Envision for the future of
Honduras and its Zeds