The 48th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM this week will see discussions on the steps required to establish a CARICOM Digital Skills Commission.
In their meeting last July, under the chairmanship of Dickon Mitchell, the Lead Head of Government with responsibility for Science and Technology in the CARICOM Quasi Cabinet, the Heads of Government approved the Strategic Framework for Regional Digital Resilience 2025-2030.
This strategic initiative aims to advance the region’s digital resilience and position CARICOM to effectively tackle digital challenges. The objective is to guide the digital transformation of the economies of CARICOM member states and to build a digital economy within the region.
Jennifer Britton, Deputy Programme Manager for Information and Communication Technology for Development, provided context on the region’s current digital status and shared her insight into the vision for the proposed commission.
She emphasized that digital development is closely connected to regional integration and development.
Britton expressed her hope that the upcoming discussions would focus on the key challenges facing digital development within the region. She believes that combining the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) programme with digital development will be crucial to overcoming these challenges.
“They’re going to be talking about the CSME,” she explained. “And I’m hoping that some of the issues in digital development, such as the Digital Skills Commission, as well as prevailing issues in telecoms—one of those is that our telecoms providers saying we don’t have a business case for 5G and even 6G.”
“That conversation has to happen at all levels—political, technical, and the person in the street—and I hope that the attention of the Heads of Government is placed there so they can give some high-level guidance,” Britton added.
She also hopes that digital technology will be seen as an important partner in helping the region achieve its broader goals.
“I hope that digital technology can be seen as a partner with all that is desired to be accomplished as a region and that Heads of Government would see this as a priority discussion at every meeting,” she said.
The 48th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM will convene in Bridgetown, Barbados from February 19 to 21.
