Some months ago, I had mentioned that the Caribbean Development Portal of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) launched an online survey “to get a sense of views within the region regarding the relative importance of various policy objectives in the area of ICT”. Like most in the region, I anticipated the outcome of the report for the fact that it would be the first time that the various (sometimes siloed) information society actors in the region would have an opportunity to view a collective window into what ‘we’ considered to be important to the Caribbean region from an information society perspective.

The results of the survey was published in

the July-September 2015 edition of FOCUS magazine, starting at page 10. FOCUS magazine is the regular publication of the Caribbean sub-regional group within ECLAC.

In seeking to fulfil the survey’s objectives, respondents were required to provide a weighted score to various specific strategic goals (Not a Priority; Low Priority; Moderate Priority; Medium Priority; High Priority). In turn, these goals were organised under five broad thematic categories: Access and infrastructure; Social inclusion and sustainable development; Governance for the Information Society; Digital economy, innovation, and competitiveness; and e-Government and citizenship. Each category had varying numbers of strategic goals.

In total there were 37 respondents (full disclosure: that number included yours truly)

The Results
As I would have suggested earlier, the real value of this survey was the window it offered into the thinking of ICT practitioners across various sectors in the region.

The total of 90 strategic goals were given a weighted score based on the average importance score give by the 37 respondents to the survey. Accordingly, it could be said that those results in the top third of the table were perceived to be the most important goals by respondents. The further down the table the strategic goal appeared, the less important it was to the community. 

With this thinking in mind, I created the below table which divided the results into three tiers: top, mid and bottom. This was my means of seeking to readily reflect the importance of each strategic goal to the community of practitioners in the Caribbean. Each tier holds 30 responses.

What immediately jumps out is that the number of thematic goals offered for scoring to the respondents varied greatly across the five categories. The largest category: “Digital Economy, innovation and competitiveness” had 27 different strategic goals. By comparison, the “e-Government and citizenship” category only possessed 10 of these strategic goals. Obviously, this would render a category versus category comparison within each tier, an illegitimate analysis.

Accordingly, the approach I took to making sense of the responses was to consider the percentage of each category that showed up in each Tier. I then went the additional step of highlighting (in pink) the tier in which each category was most dominant. When done, a clearer picture of the thinking of the Caribbean’s ICT practitioners begins to emerge. 

What then becomes immediately striking is that infrastructure was most dominantly represented as a bottom tier priority. This is an Interesting outcome since, without the physical infrastructure in place to allow for access, there can be no true information society. It is the fundamental building block. To illustrate the point, not counting Barbados, most of the rest of the territories in the Caribbean can legitimately be categorised as lacking sufficient physical infrastructure to guarantee high speed internet access to the entire population.

This is a troubling collective view.

I would not dare suggest that a mere 37 practitioners accurately represent the thinking of all our region’s leading technologist. However, it is the only data of this kind that we do have. Having said that, on the face of it, if there is any merit in the survey, the ready conclusion is that our ICT thinkers and practitioners are perhaps too focused on ideal outcomes over practical, next-steps.