Opinion

CARICOM must build the digital economy it has only planned

Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell of Grenada, CARICOM’s lead head of government for science and technology, told the region’s ICT ministers in Georgetown that the plans are written and the frameworks agreed. What the Caribbean needs now, he argues, is the investment, and the urgency, to make them real.

By Dickon Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada

The Caribbean has never been short of plans for its digital future. We have built a Single ICT Space, adopted a Strategic Framework for Digital Resilience that runs to 2030, and agreed, more than once, to accelerate digital development. When I opened the meeting of our ICT ministers in Georgetown, I said what I believe this moment demands: “We must move decisively from policy discussions to measurable implementation and outcomes to build a CARICOM digital economy.”

My concern is straightforward. Small states cannot afford to arrive late to the digital economy. Amid global uncertainty, economic instability, and the fast-moving rules being written around artificial intelligence, digital trade, and data governance, the danger for a region like ours is a familiar one. As I put it to my colleagues, “If CARICOM is to remain competitive and relevant, we need to act collectively and strategically to ensure that our Region is not left at the margins of the global digital economy.” No single member state can navigate this transition alone. Our strength has always been in acting together.

I am optimistic about what this technology can do for us. Artificial intelligence is becoming a defining force in the global economy, with the capacity to improve public services, raise productivity, and create industries we do not yet have. For a region that has often had to build its institutions from a standing start, AI offers a rare chance to leapfrog older development pathways rather than follow them step by step. I hold that optimism alongside a firm condition: the way we adopt these tools must be guided by inclusion, trust, and ethical governance, or the gains will reach only a few.

We must move decisively from policy discussions to measurable implementation and outcomes to build a CARICOM digital economy. Dickon Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada

I know this transition will be painful for some. Automation falls hardest on clerical and contact-centre work, much of it done by young Caribbean women, and an honest digital agenda has to plan for the people it will displace as carefully as for the industries it will create. That is why I keep returning to skills. Our young people are the region’s real digital infrastructure, and they will either be equipped to build this economy or left to watch others build it.

My priority, in the words I used in Georgetown, is “to equip young people with the tools to participate in the digital economy and to increase investment in digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, digital skills development, and modern regulatory systems that can keep pace with technological change.” None of that is free. Each of those lines requires money that most of our governments struggle to raise alone, which is the strongest argument I know for financing it as one region rather than fifteen.

The frameworks are agreed and the target year is close. What remains is the decision to pay for what we have already designed. I have asked my fellow heads of government to put real money behind digital development at this meeting, and to defend that spending as they would any other national priority. Do that, and the Caribbean will spend the coming decade living in a digital economy rather than planning one.