Comments on: Is the Caribbean’s growing focus on ICT just rhetoric?

By: John Thompson

John Thompson — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 14:59:47 +0000

This ICT development is a subset of the whole Caribbean development predicament facing post colonial governance systems within the Commonwealth, with the exception of maybe Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the former South Africa( new South Africa is a different, paradigm) and I dear say even the United Sates, colonial governance has left in its wake a caretaker mentality. Caribbean governments are by and large caretakers of the colonial system and content only to tweak it here and there mainly( when directed to do so for some financial benefit or to do the minimal modernisation required to sustain it in its least modified form (marginal fixing so to speak). Why is this the mentality? Could be the result of a host of reasons, for one, inertia brought on by the overwhelming nature of the governance? It requires politicians to work harder for an intangible benefit and to sometimes make thankless sacrifices. There is no massive individual material benefit accruing to those who daily struggle to turn the fortunes of an economic system, a legislative system and a social system through using the political system, as it is legally designed to function. Under the normal practices, politician don’t get rich. The other option proposes the accumulation of wealth and the abuse of privilege through accessing the public purse for personal gain. There are only so many hours in the day to address this other option, but the imperative of office requires at least, continuity of the system on an ongoing basic. So if you propose to serve the personal wealth accumulation option you have no time to serve the intangible benefits option unless you adopt a caretaker role as a means of providing continuity to the systems you are elected or charged govern. This approach frees your time to address your wealth agenda. Before you know it your term is over you have much personal wealth but could only spare the time to “care take” the system so, no radical change, no modernisation, no re-engineering, a few added assets to preoccupy the system users and the electorate, but by and large little development. That is only one reason. Briefly another is that change and social justice always carries the risk of altering the status quo, The power of the past colonial governance was that it could effect change without altering the status quo. Simply because those changes are always conducted in the interest of the status quo who hold the controlling power over the people. In a independent democratic country change is championed/legitimised only in the interest of the people, the people can bring down the status quo, big difference. So we post- colonial leaders with internal support resist the radical changes that threatens the status quo. We make tacit alignments to keep things as they are because it is the only way of guaranteeing the intransigence of the status quo. There are many other “and so on and so on” reinforcing the post colonial paradigm. Its all about power for its own sake and perpetuation of a dynasty approach where governance is for life. This is chosen over the new world concept of nation building open competition and creating an environment were prosperity is legitimately made accessible to all through hard work and fair dealing (” the American Dream” for want of an analogy). Until we begin to work for the good of the country as not an audacious challenge to our will to govern for the development of our people, we will continue to choose the next best thing. I haven’t even mentioned ICT to explain the problem but one can see that the attitude adopted for governance will also impact on the desirability for the radicalism that ICT proposes. Also, caretakers don’t usually assume such radical changes that will take so much effort and distract away from the other real agenda of personal gain and aggrandisement.

By: Telojo Valerie Onu

Telojo Valerie Onu — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 13:05:53 +0000

It is definitely part of lip service. In the case of Saint Kitts funding was there from the European Union to establish a PPP foundation to drive information society, but the will was not there.

CARICOM developed a plan but where is the will or resources to implement. Perhaps we need another disaster like in Haiti to see how ICTs have been used.

To be it will continue to be lip service until something drastic happens like the Clico fiasco but this time cyber crime. Truth be told, as a region we are not proactive but reactive.

The reality is, unless spearheaded by the private sector, to put it colloquially, “we spinning top in mud”.

Then there is the issue of Caribbean economies growing lack of competitiveness and its need to foster innovation for increased competitiveness, ICT’s play a critical role in facilitating innovation and the development of new business models, but when you look at surveys as to how SMEs use ICTs its very basic stuff. On the flip side you have a scattered applications development sector that is struggling for seed and start up finance, that is craving equity or royalty based funding but this is absent in the Caribbean environment.

So it boils down to the WILL to change, this is fundamentally absent. Countries like Estonia and Rwanda had their Presidents or Prime Ministers championing the use of ICT’s for transformation. This will also embraced public private partnerships I must add.

By: Andrea Blake

Andrea Blake — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 21:37:25 +0000

Interesting article. ICT4D requires the collaboration of pubic sector policy makers, private sector investors and academias. The examples of countries like Singapore, Ireland and Taiwan are documented as models of how smaller countries have applied ICT as an enabler of social and economic development for their economies. The Caribbean needs a cohesive strategic approach to the various elements of infrastructure which support ICT4D.

By: Aylair Livingstone

Aylair Livingstone — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 13:11:27 +0000

Michele, very good article and insightful observations. As a Freedom of Information and Open Data practitioner, I am very much aware of the importance of strong ICT infrastructures to the sharing of information for the purposes of transparency/innovation/business development etc. Given our track record of much talk and little action here in the Caribbean, at least there is some incremental progress in ICT even if it is largely spearheaded by private telecom companies.

By: Vidyaratha Kissoon

Vidyaratha Kissoon — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 18:59:36 +0000

I wonder if the problem is the absence of any coherent plan or strategy rather than the financing. So many countries have developed strategies, there is even a CARICOM one but they do not seem to be implemented or evaluated. I thought that the models we were following were the Republic of Ireland and Estonia.

By: Niel Harper

Niel Harper — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 15:46:21 +0000

I personally believe that it is part lip service, and part because government officials know that there is considerable funding to be obtained from the World Bank, ITU and other organizations to support ICT for development (ICT4D) projects. Not to mention that a number of trips to conferences and workshops are made available as well.

Not meaning to come across like the harbinger of doom, but I have not seen any concrete public sector initiatives (market liberalization, regulatory reform, network build-out, spectrum auctions, e-government, etc.) across the region that would change my thinking.