(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The World Bank on Wednesday presented a programme to the Caribbean that would support initiatives for improved Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) within the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM).
The project concept for the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Programme (CARCIP) was officially presented to the region at a workshop at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre in St. Michael, Barbados. The workshop, which opened on 17 November, was held at the conclusion of the Fifth Meeting of the Regional Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Steering Committee.
The World Bank was engaged in bi-lateral discussions with various countries, but only on Wednesday officially disclosed the project to a wider regional grouping.
CARCIP is designed as a broad umbrella programme to include all CARIFORUM Member States. It will be anchored within the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) ICT agenda and will be closely coordinated with the Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network (CKLN), the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations (CANTO), the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and other initiatives in the region.
Among the proposed objectives are to increase access and affordability of broadband communications networks within the region and countries; contribute to the development of the regional Information Technology (IT) industry; and contribute to improved government efficiency and transparency through the delivery of e-services, including e-government and e-society applications.
Lead ITC Specialist, Global Information and Communication Technologies Department, World Bank, Mr. Juan Navas-Sabater, said that the programme was an integrated one that was centred on three pillars: infrastructure, building national IT industries, and the delivery of electronic services.
While it was proposed as a broad umbrella initiative to include all CARIFORUM countries, the programme would be tailored to the needs and interests of each country, he said.
“Once the countries express, formally, interest in being part of the CARCIP, we would finance the specific activities with different financing mechanisms,” he said.
Those financing mechanisms, he said, included loans through the World Bank, grants that it could mobilise through other international development partners, and public/private partnership investments.
The World Bank’s Lead IT Specialist said that following a formal expression of interest by a CARIFORUM Member State, the Bank would field a team of experts to design the country programme.
He said that he anticipated that the workshop in Barbados would provide a glimpse of those areas in which Member States were interested, so that the experts could begin to tailor the specific components.
He said that the feedback the Bank had received in its initial consultations were generally positive.
“Most of the countries were very interested; they understand the need. There was a sense that the financial crisis was still looming, so some Member States felt that they needed to think carefully about debt. But at this stage, I think they see it more as an instrument of being ready for future shocks and having this kind of infrastructure in place would help them weather the storms much better,” Navas-Sabater said.
