The New Economic Story of Suriname in 2019

THE STAR Businessweek JULY 6, 2019

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in this edition of

The New Economic Story of Suriname in 2019 Suriname is nestled in a neighbourhood of states with deeply contrasting fortunes. Here at STAR Businessweek we’ve previously touched on the economic trials and triumphs of Brazil, Venezuela and Guyana, which all border this nation of 573,000. Just as each of the aforementioned countries is presently — for better or worse — writing landmark chapters in its national story, so too is Suriname arriving at an important crossroads. So let’s look at its present performance and future prospects.

SBW THE STAR Businessweek

In the Path of the Storm: Is the Region Ready for Hurricane Season?

This year the start of hurricane season was met with a palpable sense of anxiety. It may be almost two years since Irma and Maria made their mark on the eastern Caribbean, but no-one has forgotten the devastation and the subsequent arduous recovery.

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By ED Kennedy, STAR Businessweek Correspondent Continued on page 4

Towards a Digital Society The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) descended on Trinidad and Tobago last month for its 49th annual board meeting, giving Caribbean leaders a chance to talk tech.

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Suriname, with its pristine environment, has become a pawn in a new Great Game as the balance of power in the Americas shifts from the United States toward China.

– James Whitlow Delano, Pulitzer Center

Calum Cameron of Proud Engineers based in Estonia delivers the keynote speech during the 20th William G Demas Memorial lecture at Central Bank Auditorium, Port of Spain last month. Photo by Kerwin Pierre.

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e-Government

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The STAR Businessweek Christian Wayne Publisher & EDITOR of STAR Businessweek

Data security meets diplomacy: Why Estonia is storing its data in Luxembourg

Estonia is entrusting terabytes of information on its citizens to an ally in the hope of improving the security of its crucial government systems.

By Yuliya Talmazan

People look at visualizations at a cyberdefence exercise organised by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Estonia on April 10, 2019

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ecades of political stability and prosperity have made the tiny European nation of Luxembourg a trusted destination for the storage of sensitive data.

The country boasts 23 high-tech data centres, the majority of which were built in the last 10 years, and high-speed international connectivity. For several years now, it has been entrusted with storing data for NATO and the European Union — and now, the country of Estonia.

In early June, Estonia transferred four core databases of information, including land and business registries, to servers at one of Luxembourg’s high-security data centres, the exact location of which was not disclosed to NBC News because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Six more are on the way and should be transferred by September. It is believed to be the world’s first “data embassy”.

“Our government provided data centre services along with immunity. This is

the innovative part of it,” Patrick Houtsch, director of Luxembourg’s government information technology centre, said.

“Of course, they could have stored their data in some public cloud or service provider, but they would not have the same guarantees in terms of being able to completely protect and know where the information is.”

At a time when tech giants face growing distrust, Estonia is entrusting terabytes of information on its citizens to an ally in the hope of improving the security of its crucial government systems. The former Soviet republic is one of the most wired nations in the world. Using a system of high-tech national ID cards, Estonia’s 1.3 million citizens can do their taxes, vote, bank, make travel arrangements and access health care records online, often in a matter of minutes.

Estonia’s tech reliance has pushed the country’s leaders to take precautions that few other nations have had to consider.

In 2007 Estonia suffered a series of crippling cyberattacks that shut down Continued on page 6

HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS

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In the Path of the Storm: Is the Region Ready for Hurricane Season?

By Catherine Morris, STAR Businessweek Correspondent

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his year the start of hurricane season was met with a palpable sense of anxiety. It may be almost two years since Irma and Maria made their mark on the eastern Caribbean, but no-one has forgotten the devastation and the subsequent arduous recovery.

Since the landmark 2017 season, the region has been firmly focused on disaster management. Conferences were convened, seminars were held and high-level discussions took place as governments, environmental groups and development agencies all clamoured to air their views on disaster risk and resilience. But has this talk translated into action? Is the Caribbean prepared for the 2019 season?

SIGNS OF PROGRESS Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) Ronald Jackson believes the Caribbean has come a long way in two years, but must keep up the pace because there is more to do. He says: “We have made some positive strides forward since 2017, but we still see some room for improvement. There is still more to be done that involves looking at national-level efforts around preparedness and responses. A number of national institutions need to be strengthened. There are still some countries we need to keep an eye on.”

Haiti and the Dominican Republic are of particular concern, according to Jackson who says the latter is still struggling after direct hits from the 2017 storms. He adds that Jamaica and Saint Lucia are “leading the Caribbean” in terms of risk financing. “Saint Lucia has seen a lot of really good work on financing the risk management aspect.

It is very encouraging.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Climate Prediction Center has predicted a “near-normal” Atlantic hurricane season this year with between nine and 15 named storms (i.e. those with winds of 39mph or higher), of which four to eight could become hurricanes.

The numbers may sound low but every Caribbean native knows that all it takes is one storm to destroy livelihoods and wreak havoc on the region.

CDEMA has to be ready for anything and preparation takes place all-year round. “There is a lot of work that goes into being ready for June 1,” says Jackson. “This kind of work is 365 days a year. We have quite a bit on our plate.”

CDEMA has been busy training members of the CARICOM Disaster

Hurricane Maria making its way through the Caribbean in September 2017

Relief Unit and upgrading and improving its Regional Coordination Centre in Barbados. In May it collaborated with the UK’s Ministry of Defence and the US military for training exercises. The agency is also working on a Model Evacuation Plan for guidance on how to deal with the displaced. Partnership and collaboration is at the core of these efforts and CDEMA has been building links with the international community to enhance training, improve tools and technology, and access technical and financial support.

Cooperation is a vital component, according to Jackson who wants to see a culture of coordination trickle down so that national, regional and international players are all on the same page and working seamlessly towards the same goal.

Jackson likens it to conducting a piece of music, saying: “Your orchestra is a number of instruments playing their part in the symphony. That message is understood in some countries but not in all.

“A huge part of being prepared is leadership, not just political but operational. There is a belief that disaster risk management is the responsibility of one office [but] it requires a whole society approach.”

PUBLIC PREPAREDNESS That whole society approach can only come about with substantial public buy-in. While governments and other bodies can, and should, drive resilience efforts, it is also up to every Caribbean citizen to play their part. “The population needs to take ownership and individual responsibility for preparedness at the household level and that should be joined by national level resources,” says Jackson.

“The responsibility of the public cannot be overstated.”

Saint Lucia’s National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) has been making public education a priority, with a slew of public service announcements broadcast over the national media, community visits and updates on their social media platforms. But, like every aspect of disaster preparedness, public awareness campaigns cost money. One of the major constraints on regional readiness is funding. Jackson says hurricane preparedness is often sidelined in favour of other budgetary concerns. “It is about trying to balance resource allocation across a number of priorities. We need to look at capacity and capability strengthening [and ask] how do we make this the priority of priorities? Debt is strangling each country’s ability to finance these transformational things that are required. We are in a time of

Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) Ronald Jackson

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climate change; we have to look at the humanitarian issues. We need to recognise a unity of purpose that is focused on minimising impact and suffering.”

This is an area where the public can drive change, he suggests, with greater involvement in holding their leaders to account and showing them that it is a national concern. “If the public does not see it as a priority, then government will not see it as a priority.”

Evolving tools In the internet age, the public now have access to a wealth of information about hurricanes. Whether tracking a storm through an app, connecting with those affected via social media platforms or browsing the NOAA website for data, the general public is now more aware of the potential scale and damage of hurricane season.

For Jackson, this is a positive step — making the region less complacent and pushing disaster management into the spotlight. “We have become more engaged as a global society. Citizens are becoming citizen scientists and their expectations of what the state can deliver is now higher.”

And it’s not just the public availing themselves of the latest digital tools.

CDEMA has been keeping up with cutting-edge technology to enhance their efforts — making use of a platform that inputs real-time country data to develop potential impact scenarios, using RFID technology to scan and track relief goods, monitoring enhanced early warning systems and upgrading satellite systems.

“We depend heavily on technology.

The availability of modern tools can really change the game. We are very excited about the technology and where it is going. It will not be an overnight change but we are making strides.”

Preparing for hurricanes is a neverending task. As long as there are storms, the Caribbean must continue to figure out how to weather them.

“There will never be a time when we do not worry,” says Jackson. “We are islands, we will always face those challenges.”

While resilience and risk have become buzzwords in recent years, CDEMA has been focused on those two elements for some time and Jackson sounds a note of cautious optimism, urging national institutions to turn talk into action. “We have to be very careful that we do not just use the word resilience, but we understand what it means and we are able to measure and track it. I am very hopeful that we will get it right in terms of having sophisticated emergency response systems and a reduction in our level of SBW exposure and vulnerability.”

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SURINAME

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The New Economic Story of Suriname in 2019 Continued from page 1

An Overview of Suriname Though Suriname has a comparatively small population, it is today one of the most ethnically diverse nations on Earth due to its complex history, commencing with European arrival in the 16th century. The country went through decolonisation in the 1950s and obtained full independence from the Netherlands in 1975.

Its journey through the second half of the 20th century also saw political upheaval complicate upward growth. A 1980 military coup made Dési Bouterse the president; elections in 1987 and 1991 saw his power ebb away before his ultimate return via the 2010 election as part of a four-party coalition. The decade since has been an economic roller coaster but now seems to be on the up and up although substantial structural challenges remain.

Suriname’s Economy from 2010 to Present Following two years of contraction, the nation’s economy recorded a 1.7% growth in real GDP during 2017, achieved 1.4% growth in 2018 and is projected to achieve 1.6% in 2019. This is good news for the country but it has travelled this road before in recent times, only for it to all end in tears.

Strong reforms were pursued in the post-GFC era and showed early signs of success. The past six years have also seen a reform programme that is intended to modernise the economy and make it more competitive. Yet the inroads laid in the early 2010s were unable to prevent the economic contractions seen in the middle of that decade.

Despite this, recent progress of Suriname has been positive. The conclusion of the IMF’s Article IV visit in November 2018 was that unemployment had declined and inflation had dropped to a single digit. However, the IMF cited concern surrounding fiscal deficits and sizeable public debt, especially as the latter is expected to increase in the immediate years ahead.

There also remain structural issues of real concern. Suriname’s heavy reliance on the mining sector — accounting for around 85% of exports and around 27% of annual government revenue — means any volatility within the sector globally can rapidly become a source of economic misery for the nation domestically.

Unfortunately the nature of the mining industry internationally makes it vulnerable to corruption; economic graft and resource looting can occur more easily in secret than is possible in other industries. Although the mining sector has diminished slightly in importance to the nation’s economy — in 2013 representing around 95% of its exports — for the near future, whatever route Suriname’s mining sector takes, then so goes the rest of the economy.

Unsurprisingly, given the nature of

High gold prices combined with lax land-use regulations have led to an explosion in mining in Suriname.

Gold mining in the small South American country grew by 893 per cent between 2000 and 2014.

the country’s governance, Suriname does not perform well on Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index. Recent years have seen Suriname on the slide, ranked 64 out of 176 nations in 2016, and slipping to 77 out of 180 in 2017. A slight improvement was seen in 2018, ascending to 73, but bearing in mind the nation’s enduring battle with corruption, a steep improvement in the rankings isn’t anticipated at this time.

Looking Around the Neighbourhood Suriname’s immediate region is also a key consideration. To the south, Brazil, under the leadership of President Bolsonaro, is attempting to revive Latin America’s largest economy after a period of ‘lost years’ over the past decade. Venezuela remains a deeply embattled nation, with its economic woes compounded by its political instability, and the foreign policy skirmishes of the disputed president Nicolás Maduro further complicating regional relationships.

By contrast, Suriname’s immediate neighbour, Guyana, is at present the fastest growing economy in the world.

The newly oil-rich nation has also known its share of political instability over the past calendar year but ultimately has a bright economic future to look forward to.

Feeding The Global Appetite Internationally, Suriname must contend with a global economy that is not salivating for new growth. Forecasts by the World Bank project global economic growth for 2019 in whole at just 2.6%, with only a modest increase of 2.7% anticipated in 2020. The growth among developing economies is slightly better at 4% for 2019.

Globally, investment in developing nations remains sluggish. This is unlikely to change rapidly due to the enduring political uncertainty of Brexit, a USChina trade war and now increasingly a look to November 2020 and consideration of whether Donald Trump will win re-election or see his flirtation with protectionism end with the election of a Democratic candidate.

Many signs suggest that the current political turbulence seen globally is not merely a speed bump on the road but is going to be the ‘new normal’, so waiting is simply not an option.

Strong reforms were pursued in the post GFC-era and showed early signs of success.

The past six years have also seen a reform programme that is intended to modernise the economy and make it more competitive.

Building for the Future The present work of Suriname’s foreign ministry will be important to watch in this regard, with recent months seeing a strengthening of ties with the emerging powers of the Kingdom of Morocco in Africa and Indonesia in Asia. Whether these ties will sustain and thrive remains to be seen, but not only are those two nations today economic partners of rapidly growing importance, they are signposts for the future profitability to be found in the MENA and Asian regions.

Suriname can expect a bumpy few months ahead — maybe even years — but there are strong signs that the country has started down a new road in 2019. Now to watch where it leads to.

EL SALVADOR

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The Man with a Plan: Nayib Bukele’s New Leadership for El Salvador

By ED Kennedy, STAR Businessweek Correspondent

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l Salvador’s new leader, President Nayib Bukele, took office on June 1, 2019 with a promise to bring real change. The youthful 37-year-old entrepreneur and former mayor of El Salvador’s capital city San Salvador succeeded the baby boomer-born former president Salvador Sánchez Cerén, who himself succeeded fellow baby boomer Mauricio Funes.

The last month has shown that this new president is indeed a sharp contrast from his predecessors.

Having leaned heavily on social media to drive his campaign for the presidency, in office President Bukele has continued to cultivate a reputation for doing things differently. But while El Salvador’s new head of state has undoubtedly brought a new dynamism to the presidency, many of the nation’s biggest problems are old and enduring.

So can President Bukele make good on his promise to bring real change? And what does the world beyond El Salvador need to know about the new leader of 6.4 million Salvadorans?

The Energy to Deliver Change Since the end of civil war hostilities in 1992, El Salvador has looked to write a new chapter. Despite this, it retains one of the highest homicide rates in the world, and has an ongoing nationwide problem of criminal gang activity, with total gang membership estimated to be 70,000.

Bukele has come to office promising to drive down the murder rate and has indicated there will be no negotiations with gangs. Instead of relying on oldfashioned policing alone, Bukele has signalled that he will eradicate gang activity by stifling their economic resources. But just as gang activity is contributing to so many Salvadorans seeking refuge elsewhere throughout the region, Bukele must also find a formula to incentivize a return to their homeland, and Central America’s fourth largest economy.

Though recent years have seen El Salvador endure economic stagnation, the nation’s energy sector has been a ray of sunshine amidst the storm clouds. As of December 2018, renewable energies came in at over 60% of the country’s total energy generation. Further growth remains promising too, with French renewable energy producer Neoen financing a 141MW solar power and storage project set to be operational in early 2020.

However, the jobs gained in this emerging sector, and more widely in the nation’s service industry — which accounts for around 64% of the economy — stand alongside the underpowered

Populist Nayib Bukele’s decisive first-round victory ends three decades of two-party rule in El Salvador.

Turnout in the election was low, underscoring voter frustration with the two main parties. © Reuters

tourism industry and losses being seen in the agriculture sector.

This is an era of transition for El Salvador. Other countries around the region have seen their economies successfully diversify from being primarily agrarian-based. A decline in the homicide rate and drop in gang activity would also help drive up tourism numbers.

Bukele should certainly be granted a window of time before his record is assessed (political scientists commonly cite 90 to 100 days as a key period for a new leader to make substantial change) but his campaign ran on relatively vague promises and sparse policy detail.

This means that the outsider status that propelled him into the presidency will

also see his current supporters turn away if he fails to deliver. Likewise, his capacity to be a strong agent of change will stall if his current momentum isn’t maintained.

Time is of the Essence Alongside his domestic priorities, Bukele is keenly aware that his ascent will prompt a new look at his nation by many outside it. With concerns having been expressed about extra-judicial killings by law enforcement officers that allegedly occurred in previous years, he has already pledged to NGO Amnesty International that human rights will be respected by his government.

Beyond promises, and in concrete foreign policy action, Bukele’s

Inmates of the Penal de Ciudad Barrios in El Salvador, reserved for members of the MS-13 gang. Photo by Adam Hinton

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relationship with the US will be critical. Bukele and President Donald Trump share a conservative outlook, an anti-establishment brand, and a renowned love of using Twitter for public dialogue. On a surface level there’s much common ground between the two leaders, but the relationship could turn fractious on account of high Salvadoran migration rates to the US. Bukele is choosing to focus on economic reforms and on measures with private sector partnerships to alleviate poverty, diminish instability and drive down the departure rate, abstaining from the use of more hardline measures available to him via law enforcement and the military.

Right now this approach is consistent with the pledge to Amnesty, and it may yet bear fruit, but if the near future shows no change, renewed pressure at home on Bukele will surely be met by enhanced tensions with the White House as Trump gears up for a re-election campaign, needing to win back voters who feel he failed on his promise of a hardline immigration stance.

Counting the Days Bukele’s youth should not be a defining factor of his presidency. As he and his team will know, youth by itself is not a guarantee of innovative thinking, just as greater years do not always ensure more wisdom. But the ascent of El Salvador’s newest leader comes at a time when many countries are seeing a generational gulf open up between national candidates.

The most prominent example of this is the US Democratic Party primaries for the presidential election of 2020.

The oldest major candidate is Bernie Sanders who, at 77, is close to double the age of the youngest major candidate, Pete Buttigieg who is 37 years old.

Other major candidates, like Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard, alongside current Republican leader and president Donald Trump, further enhance this divide by being either under 40 or over 70.

The age of leaders alone isn’t important, but the policies they craft and how they appeal to voters is.

Unsurprisingly, newer additions to the national stage more readily carve out unique paths to capture a greater audience. Bukele grabbed attention and won an election very effectively, via a platform that older leaders may have found harder to use without looking stiff and insincere. But even if advanced age isn’t a guarantee of wisdom, it is a sign of experience; and all things being equal, the relationship between experience and acquired wisdom is strong.

Bukele now has a place in El Salvador’s history books for running an innovative campaign. Unable to rely on years of governing experience, the challenge ahead is for him to pursue such innovation while in office. This will be key to success with his agenda, even if experience shows that achieving it will be hard.

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e-Government

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Data security meets diplomacy: Why Estonia is storing its data in Luxembourg Continued from page 2

private and government websites. It blamed the attacks on Russia but the Kremlin denied involvement.

And when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, the question of “data continuity” — should a military crisis develop — came to the forefront of public discourse.

So, Estonia looked outside its borders to secure its data in the case of a military attack or other major emergency. Wanting full control and jurisdiction over its data, it opted for a so-called data embassy — no ambassadors or diplomatic missions attached.

Unlike a conventional embassy, it would be nothing more than a room full of servers, storing data essential to keep the Estonian government and its core public services running should the country’s main servers get wiped out back home.

In June 2017 the two countries signed a bilateral agreement guaranteeing that the premises of Estonia’s data embassy inside Luxembourg would be “inviolable”, just like the premises of a regular embassy would be, meaning no Luxembourg official, whether administrative, judicial, military or police, would be able to enter the embassy or access the data without

Estonia’s approval.

“The agreement we have with Luxembourg is that it’s our territory, our jurisdiction,” Siim Sikkut, chief information officer for the government of Estonia, said.

The unique arrangement points to a growing realization that the increasing digitization of services and sensitive infrastructure can leave governments vulnerable. And while governments can contract private businesses such as Google and Microsoft for cloud services, such agreements can have shortcomings.

Estonia had considered putting government data in a privately-owned public cloud. The option was tested in 2014 when the country embarked on a trial with Microsoft, but it didn’t provide the level of control that Estonia was looking for.

Estonia is currently paying the government of Luxembourg 200,000 to 300,000 euros ($226,000 to $339,000) a year for hosting its data.

“We didn’t want to use a random cloud that’s somewhere around the world, where we don’t know what sort of rules and laws apply to the data we put there,” Sikkut The opening of the Cyber CoRe (Cooperative Resilience), March 2019 in Tallinn

said. “We wanted to have full jurisdiction over the data. No private cloud partner can really do that.”

For now, Estonia is keeping it simple and storing the data in Luxembourg as a copy of its main servers. Sikkut said the data is being continuously updated, but the frequency of updates is on a case-bycase basis.

Depending on how things go in Luxembourg, he says Estonia could be in the market for more data embassies elsewhere.

Government officials told NBC News that Monaco, another microstate in the middle of Europe, is following in Estonia’s footsteps and entered into a digital partnership with Luxembourg in December.

Estonia is currently paying the government of Luxembourg 200,000 to 300,000 euros ($226,000 to $339,000) a year for hosting its data.

“We didn’t want to use a random cloud that’s somewhere around the world, where we don’t know what sort of rules and laws apply to the data we put there,” Sikkut said.

But unlike Estonia, Monaco’s need for data protection comes down to its size.

Monaco is the second smallest nation in the world, at about three-quarters of a square mile, smaller than New York’s Central Park.

Should an emergency wipe out its servers, it’s likely a backup version sitting on its territory would be under threat as well.

“Bearing in mind the small size of the country, the government has considered the importance of backing up sensitive data in a centre located several miles from the original site, which is not possible within the principality territory,” the country’s chief digital officer, Frédéric Genta, said.

Monaco’s data embassy in Luxembourg is scheduled to go live next year.

Sikkut says setting up a model framework that others could follow was their plan with Luxembourg all along.

He says many countries, especially those in naturally hazardous areas or conflict-prone zones, or that are simply too small to have their own infrastructure, can benefit from storing their data on the territory of another nation while retaining total control.

Indeed, Luxembourg officials have told NBC News that a number of countries in addition to Estonia and Monaco have expressed interest in the concept.

“The idea is to be this trusted partner, to be this place where you can put your data and where it will be secure,” Luxembourg’s Houtsch said. “You have to have a country you can trust.”

Originally published by NBC News

DIGITAL CARIBBEAN

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Towards a Digital Society

By Catherine Morris, STAR Businessweek Correspondent

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he Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) descended on Trinidad and Tobago last month for its 49th annual board meeting, giving Caribbean leaders a chance to talk tech. Digital transformation was high on the agenda for the conference, which welcomed experts in the field to give guidance on how Caribbean life can be transformed by following the examples of smart nations around the world.

What is a digital society?

The term ‘digital society’ is creeping into regional discussions as policymakers look at ways to make the public sector more effective and efficient, but what does a digital society actually look like?

A digital society is one in which data is shared, used and collected online to make tasks such as banking, voting and registering businesses quicker and more efficient. Waiting in line for hours to renew your driver’s licence, carrying three sets of documents to three different government agencies, applying for tax credit only to find that your application has been mislaid — every Caribbean citizen knows the discomfort and hassle of dealing with government bureaucracy. A digital society would eradicate these time-consuming and stressful obstacles through platforms that are secure, safe and streamlined.

There are plenty of examples of countries around the world who are adopting digitalisation but leading the pack is Estonia.

This small European nation, with a population roughly the size of Trinidad and Tobago, has 600 e-services available to citizens, more than 2,400 e-services available to businesses and has taken 99% of its public services online. The Estonia government estimates that it has saved each citizen one week every year by switching to digital

WiPay CEO Aldwyn Wayne (right) at a WiPay launch event in Saint Lucia. Also pictured (second from left): former Saint Lucian Senator and Minister of the Public Service Dr. Ubaldus Raymond.

services. Estonians can vote, file their taxes, register for child support, renew their driver’s licence and more, with just one click.

Calum Cameron, of Estonian digital consulting firm Proud Engineers, delivered the keynote address at the CDB conference and told attendees that the Caribbean can follow in Estonia’s footprints. “Don’t reinvent the wheel; copy what others have done,” he said.

“Take their lessons and leapfrog them to take the lead in the digital space . . . not to build like-to-like — tech moves on — but to adopt the principles and the lessons.”

Aside from Estonia, the places that are making the most progress in the digital space, according to Cameron, are the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Hong Kong. These countries all have one thing in common — like Caribbean states, they are small enough to be nimble, flexible and innovative. And they’ve already done the hard work, giving Caribbean leaders a template for how to proceed. “Until other nations develop the ability and the willingness to experiment, they are going to struggle to compete for the future,” said Cameron.

“Smaller countries, agile nations, who are prepared to take a bit of a risk can jump out way ahead and work out these business models before the bigger

nations get in there.

“Dream about your digital future, think about the basics, copy what you can from others that have already done it so you don’t waste time, learn from their mistakes and jump ahead of them.”

The Caribbean context Jumping ahead of digital nations such as Estonia may seem like a far-fetched concept for the Caribbean where some citizens don’t have access to the internet, let alone a platform from which they can pay their bills online. The region has a lot of work ahead if it is to build a truly digital society.

The CDB has outlined a four-step plan for digitalisation: embed digital skills and literacy among the population, enhance the ICT and digital infrastructure, strengthen legislation and regulation, and expedite digitalisation of government services. Speaking of the importance of creating a digital society, CDB President Dr William Warren Smith said: “Digital transformation is indispensible. It will change the way we live, consume and produce. Harnessing digital power is equivalent to securing our future.”

There are already signs of small, but significant, progress being made around the region. In Barbados, where cabinet meetings have gone entirely paperless, the Town and Country Planning department now has an

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e-planning platform where people can file their applications online as part of the country’s modernisation initiative, supported by the Inter-American Development Bank. “We have to take ourselves less seriously as government,” said Barbados Minister of Economic Affairs and Investment Marsha Caddle.

“Governments have a very big role [but] we have to see ourselves more as a facilitator, as a service provider.

“We are talking about making it easier for every part of government to be accessible to everyone. A lot of these solutions are technology solutions. It is not that we started by saying ‘we want a digitalised government’, but we looked at what we were doing and thought that in order to deliver this in a more efficient way, we will have to make it accessible online. This is not just about building platforms, it is that this process allows governments to modernise everything we do.”

In Trinidad and Tobago, private e-payment platform WiPay collaborated with the judiciary to allow users to settle maintenance payments, fines, fees, filing and ticket payments online. The money is transferred electronically from a payee’s smartphone directly into the Court Pay System, and the government hopes to eventually expand the platform into other areas of the public sector. WiPay CEO Aldwyn Wayne commented that transitioning in this way requires a significant shift that takes time.

“Our culture is slighty different from the rest of the world and our government is part of this culture.

We need to take baby steps. These incremental steps towards the end game of total digitalisation would allow governments to give innovators the environment to innovate.”

In a recent interview, Priit Tohver, adviser for e-services and innovation at the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs said: “We have a lot to be proud of, even on an international level, like a fully functional e-prescription, smart support for discovering the co-effects of medicine, e-ambulance and a developing e-consultation service. Even a digital registration that works across the country is now working and more and more hospitals SBW are connecting to it.”

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