For many countries in the Americas, and particularly those in the Caribbean region, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is a crucial resource for loans, grant funding and technical assistance. Therese Turner-Jones, the General Manager of the Country Department Caribbean Group of the IDB, helps us to better understand, among other things, scope of the IDB’s work, the Bank’s posture on ICT in the Caribbean, and ICT-related opportunities that we in the region are not leveraging as we should.

 

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For the countries of the Americas, particularly Small Island Developing States, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is widely known as a donor organisation. Countries depend on the IDB for loans, grant funding and technical assistance, especially for capital intensive projects and initiatives that can transform various sectors of their economy.

However, in addition to providing financing to countries, considerable research is conducted by the IDB, which would also inform its own decisions and the advice given to countries. Scores of reports and papers are published annually, to address a broad range of topics including social inclusion and equality, productivity and innovation, economic integration, and even ICT. However, with 48 member countries, and those of the Caribbean being among the smallest, much of the research tends to be focussed on Latin America.

Therese Turner-Jones (IDB)

Notwithstanding, and thanks to the fact that the IDB maintains a regional office in Jamaica, there is a base within the Caribbean region through which to gain first-hand insights and to engage countries. To that end, our guest for this episode is Therese Turner-Jones, the General Manager of the Country Department Caribbean Group (CDCG) of the IDB. The countries covered by the CDCG are the Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, and via the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the countries of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

Therese is no stranger to the region. Originally from the Bahamas, Therese has been the CDCG General Manager since 2013, and would have been at the helm of many of the recent initiatives of the iDB in the Caribbean region. She thus fully appreciates the importance of ICT, generally, and for driving the economic and social development of the region.

In our conversation with Therese, we sought to tap into not only the research and knowledge she could draw upon as an IDB representative, and but also as someone who travels widely in across the  region, and has the opportunity to engage and advise Caribbean leaders on a broad range of topics, including ICT. Key areas covered in our discussion with Therese included the following:

  1. Greater insight into the IDB and the scope of its work.
  2. The IDB’s posture on ICT in the Caribbean region
  3. Therese’s role as the General Manager of the CDCG.
  4. Therese’s observations about ICT in the region, and the evolution/development that has occurred
  5. ICT-related opportunities Therese believes we, in the Caribbean region, are not taking advantage of
  6. Therese’s thoughts on what might be holding the Caribbean back to better leverage ICT
  7. Specific initiatives or activities that the IDB is currently supporting with regard to fostering ICT development in the region
  8. Advice that Therese would give Caribbean leaders on priorities that should be adopted to accelerate ICT in the region.

 

We would love to hear your thoughts!

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Select links

Below are links to some of the organisations and resources that either were mentioned during the episode, or otherwise, might be useful:

 

 

Image credits:  JCT 600; (flickr);  IDB

Music credit:  Ray Holman