By Ekkehardt Roth

There has been a spate of comments in the IT Forum Civic lately responding to/querying the number of IT projects in the Caribbean region that seem to stall, flounder or simply die without trace. While such thoughts are usually raised in private conversation between colleagues, quite a few of them certainly seem more concerned for the long term advancement of technology in the region for this to be given a wider audience.

As Douglas Adams already said in his best-seller “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”: “Don’t Panic!”.

This ‘CARICOM to develop a digital development action plan’ is just YAITS. It will pass by without any notice from anybody.

Those non-Linux persons might wonder what YAITS is. Well, it is ‘Yet Another IT Strategy’.

There are so many of them:

• OECS IT Strategy and Policy (2002)
• Barbados’ National ICT Strategy Plan (2005)
• ICT4D Guyana National Strategy (2006)
• National ICT Strategic Plan, St. Kitts and Nevis (2006)
• Vision 2030 Jamaica National Development Plan (ICT) (2007)
• Antigua and Barbuda ICT Policy (2007)
• Plan of Action for the Information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean, eLAC (2007)
• ECTEL Model National Policy for Advancing Growth in the ICT Sector in ECTEL Member States
• eLAC Policy Priorities Delphi (2010)

To name just a few. I certainly missed out others. Many of us have even been involved in developing them. And yet, has anybody seen a difference in ICT development? (Besides the progress of Mobile and Broadband technologies) Has anybody seen a billboard next to the road on your way to work with “Finally! Step 4 of the National ICT Strategy has been accomplished! CONGRATULATIONS to all involved!” I guess you haven’t.

IT Strategies for the Caribbean are developed by outside experts, including myself (although I consider myself as kind of a hybrid by now), and Governments and politicians gladly endorse them and use them for nice speeches on campaign rallies.

In the meantime international donors implement IT projects regardless of any National IT strategy and most go unnoticed by the general public. Fairness requires mentioning that the approval process of donor-funded projects takes sometimes several years, which is far too long for lifecycles of Information Technologies of only some months. Hence projects are potentially outdated already at the starting line.

Additionally problematic is the selection of the leading governmental department or agency responsible for the implementation of the project. IT projects need counterparts with a minimum of technology understanding. This is particularly true for any software development project. Counterparts lacking such knowledge are bound to loose momentum in numerous non-technical discussions about technical issues. IT departments are mostly not consulted although they should be the keeper of the National IT strategy.

Projects are only monitored by the donor agency, seldom, or rather never by the beneficiary country; the same holds true for a post-mortem impact analysis. The general public is almost never informed about the impact and the supposed achievements of such project implementations. In contrast nations are in competition for who has the most advanced Government IT department and what IT services are provided to the public, which has no clue what type of projects are implemented by donors. The only transparency is used to publish the amount of money received.

Simultaneously small IT based companies go out of business or the local expertise leaves the islands due to the miss-balanced market competition. When Government departments receive donations to establish an IT center and those centers are used to offer for instance computer learning classes, it is very difficult for a small private company to provide the same level of teaching facilities. Even if the Government department charges for the computer courses, sometimes those are even free of charge, a private company most probably cannot match those prices due to the economical need to factor in all costs, like investment for the equipment, or rental of rooms, to name just a few; all of which the public competitor does not have to do.

The niche for other IT opportunities in small island economies is pretty small, too small to sustain a flourishing IT sector. Besides IT training, computer / IT equipment sales and repair the local market only offers a limited, if at all, demand for client-focused software development, Enterprise Resource Planning consultancy, operation of outsourced data centers, etc. The only hope for SME’s is employment on one of the numerous donor-financed IT projects currently ongoing in the Caribbean.

Therefore, yes it must be in our interest to read and comment on this digital development action plan for CARICOM. My hopes are rather little, that any of those actions will hit the ground, i.e. will foster the economical development of the micro and small IT enterprises. Companies that will provide employment and income, the fuel and mechanics of any macro-economy.

Mr Roth is an European IT Consultant who has worked in the Caribbean.

Photo Credit: Digital Earth by jscreationzs at Freedigitalphotos.net

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