Cuba's Future: International Support for a Potential Transition

An investigation by CiberCuba | Final Installment

The previous parts of this series have demonstrated that Cuba's independent civil society is not starting from scratch when facing a potential change. There is a substantial body of proposals outlining various paths towards transition, governance plans for rebuilding the nation, and a need for better coordination, leadership, and execution to transform this knowledge into a tangible political alternative.

The concluding question of this investigation is what contributions can come from abroad.

For decades, democratic governments, parliaments, universities, foundations, and human rights organizations have supported Cuban activists by documenting repression, funding independent media and organizations, studying potential change scenarios, and sharing experiences from other transitions. However, there is a crucial distinction between strengthening civil society against an authoritarian regime and preparing it to manage a transition effectively.

Learning from Past Transitions

The idea of preparing for a transition isn't novel. One of the most notable precedents is the Prague Summit of 2004. This gathering included former presidents, political leaders, academics, NGOs, and Cuban opposition representatives. The resulting Prague Memorandum recommended strengthening Cuban civil society, establishing international NGO and parliamentary networks, and forming an expert commission to compile democratic transition experiences from Europe and Latin America for Cuban use.

It also emphasized improving coordination among opposition groups to prepare them for a peaceful transition and the establishment of a rule of law. This approach was progressive for its time, advocating that the international community should do more than just criticize the regime, but help Cubans prepare for change.

Insights from Poland's Transition

Poland has expressly offered to share its post-1989 transition experience and the lessons from the Solidarity movement with Cuba and the United States. In May, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski stated that Warsaw is open to advising on a peaceful transition to democracy and a market economy. He had already discussed this with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

This initiative includes direct engagement with the Cuban opposition; Sikorski met with José Daniel Ferrer in Warsaw, offering Poland's support for Cuban democratic aspirations. Poland's experience is particularly valuable: it demonstrates how to negotiate a transition from a communist regime to democracy and a market economy, providing a comparative framework that could be useful for Cuba, despite significant differences between the two countries.

International Efforts Beyond Central Europe

The international learning surrounding Cuba isn't limited to former communist countries. CADAL has long advocated for Cuban democratic actors to broaden their international support networks, seeking involvement from Germany, Canada, France, Norway, Chile, and others, alongside the U.S., Poland, and the Czech Republic.

The cooperation trajectory varies across countries and hasn't always targeted a transition explicitly. Often, it involved human rights diplomacy, activist support, or civil society engagement. This diversity means that the international framework isn't a single structure nor follows a unified strategy for Cuba.

American Support for Cuban Civil Society

Washington's involvement in preparing Cuban civil society for eventual change dates back decades. U.S. programs have historically supported human rights, independent civil society, media access, and organizational capacity building. A strategic State Department document notes regular engagement with activists, dissidents, and civil society members, emphasizing continued support for independent media, information access, and organizational capacity building.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reviewed U.S. assistance to Cuban democratic programs, highlighting significant security risks for beneficiaries and organizations, necessitating specific protection and risk management mechanisms.

Building Institutional Capacity

The accumulated experience indicates that much international assistance has focused on keeping civil society alive and resilient under authoritarianism. The pressing question now is how to transform these capabilities into preparation for the subsequent phase.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) exemplifies this evolution, extending its support beyond traditional dissidents to include independent journalists, labor organizers, religious leaders, rights advocates, farmers, and community organizations. Recent reports emphasize investment in digital resilience and partner protection under pressure, indirectly aiding transition preparation by fostering a civil society capable of organizing, documenting, communicating, and resisting.

European Foundations and Think Tanks

European foundations, like the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, have contributed significantly by supporting research on potential Cuban transition scenarios and analyzing risks of elite replacements.

These actors fund thought, gather experts, produce documents, and connect Cubans with comparative experiences, offering a distinct role from diplomacy.

The Role of Academia

Universities also play a crucial role in this infrastructure. Florida International University (FIU) hosted the Cuba: The Day After Tomorrow conference in February 2026, bringing together academics, experts, activists, and students to discuss politics, economics, law, society, and institutions. FIU's broader initiative involves assembling specialists across various fields to aid a future democratic Cuba.

Institutions like the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE), the University of Miami, and the University of Texas have similarly focused on producing relevant knowledge in areas like economics, energy, infrastructure, governance, and institutional transformation.

Towards a Comprehensive Transition Architecture

International efforts reveal several dispersed functions, from protecting activists to financing media and documenting abuses. Universities produce knowledge, foundations fund research, governments offer comparative experiences, and parliaments provide international legitimacy, while organizations can support humanitarian aid, emergency funding, and reconstruction.

What seems underdeveloped is the integration of these capabilities into a cohesive transition architecture. There's no visible equivalent of an international "school of public administration for Cuban transition," a transnational program to train officials, a coordinated mechanism to prepare emergency ministries, or a fund specifically tailored to build the institutional capacity a transforming Cuba would require.

Identifying the Needs of a Cuban Transition

The accumulated experience suggests that a potential transition would require more than humanitarian aid or sanctions. It would need public administration training, legal and constitutional assistance, electoral observation, transitional justice mechanisms, media and civil society support, defender protection, energy, water, health, and agriculture experts, financial advice, audit systems, and access to international credit and financing.

It would also benefit from comparative experiences to avoid past mistakes in other transitions, requiring rapid international response capabilities. The key difference between planning for a transition and responding to a real crisis might be a matter of days.

However, leadership must remain Cuban. The conclusion of this investigation is not for the international community to design Cuba's transition. It is quite the opposite.

International support will be most effective when it empowers Cubans to lead the process themselves. This means supporting capacities, not replacing them; funding institutions and professionals, not buying political representation; sharing experiences, not imposing models; and helping build legitimacy, not granting it from outside.

European experience shows there is no universal transition. Poland's was not the Czech's; the Czech's was not Spain's, and none would be mechanically replicable in Cuba. What can be transferred is knowledge on managing regime changes, building institutions, reforming economies, organizing elections, professionalizing administrations, and preventing a rupture from ending in new authoritarianism.

The investigation's four parts reveal a more complex but less pessimistic outlook on Cuba's political future.

First, there is a substantial body of thought on paths to transition: plebiscite, negotiation, rupture, "law to law" transition, provisional government, and constituent processes.

Second, there's a significant volume of proposals on governing and rebuilding the country: justice, security, economy, property, energy, infrastructure, health, education, and social protection.

Third, the major deficit appears in the final stretch: common leadership, coordination, selection of responsible parties, legitimacy, executive capacity, and control of coercive structures.

Fourth, international support isn't starting from zero. Decades of assistance, documentation, training, research, comparative experience, and cooperation networks exist, but the pieces remain scattered.

The core question isn't whether Cuba has ideas for a transition. It does. Nor whether experts can address its major problems. They can. Nor whether potential international capital, knowledge, and support exist. They do.

The challenge is whether these resources—Cuban and international—can converge before a potential power crisis forces improvisation on what has been contemplated separately for decades.

A democratic transition isn't built solely on the day an authority changes. It is constructed beforehand: with prepared people, well-thought-out institutions, agreed rules, available resources, and a society capable of recognizing the emerging alternative as its own.

And that, perhaps, is the primary revelation of this investigation: Cuba isn't starting from scratch. What's missing is an architecture to bring together everything that already exists.