In a bid to im­prove dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, CAF (De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean) has ap­proved 3 mil­lion eu­ros, for a dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion pro­gramme that in­cludes the de­vel­op­ment of elec­tron­ic iden­ti­ty, a pub­lic da­ta in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty plat­form, and a gov­ern­ment da­ta cen­tre.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, CAF said the bank, along with the Eu­ro­pean Union will work to­geth­er to sup­port the ini­tial phas­es, which will mod­ernise com­mu­ni­ca­tions, dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture and re­lat­ed ser­vices to pro­mote greater re­silience, scal­a­bil­i­ty, in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty, en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy and se­cu­ri­ty.

The re­lease went on to state that this col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween CAF and the Eu­ro­pean Union stands out as the first op­er­a­tion di­rect­ly ap­proved to CAF by the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion In­vest­ment Fa­cil­i­ty for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (LACIF), be­com­ing the in­au­gur­al project of the Glob­al Gate­way in which CAF will par­tic­i­pate in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

CAF said the ap­proval of this project with­in the Glob­al Gate­way is great news for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, as it re­flects the re­newed com­mit­ment to the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of the re­gion across the three strate­gic ax­es set by the EU for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, in this par­tic­u­lar case, dig­i­tal tran­si­tion.

Ser­gio Díaz-Grana­dos, ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­dent of CAF said, “Last year, we achieved a his­toric mile­stone with the first meet­ing of EU and CELAC Econ­o­my and Fi­nance Min­is­ters in Sep­tem­ber in San­ti­a­go de Com­postela, and now we ful­fil by con­cretis­ing an al­liance that will ben­e­fit both blocks and is key to glob­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

It not­ed that CAF and the Gov­ern­ment are al­ready col­lab­o­rat­ing on an in­vest­ment pro­gramme for the de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try’s Gov­ern­ment da­ta cen­tre. The fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion re­cent­ly ap­proved tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance of US$225,000 to con­cep­tu­alise the ex­pan­sion of the Gov­ern­ment’s mod­u­lar da­ta cen­tre and to di­ag­nose the as­so­ci­at­ed ICT in­fra­struc­ture need­ed for the dis­tri­b­u­tion of cloud so­lu­tions (own in­fra­struc­ture and in­fra­struc­ture as a ser­vice), aimed at struc­tur­ing an in­vest­ment loan to com­plete the long-term ex­pan­sion of the da­ta cen­tre.

“With the sup­port of the Eu­ro­pean Union, the fea­si­bil­i­ty and de­tailed en­gi­neer­ing of the da­ta cen­tre will be car­ried out, con­tribut­ing to the ini­tial phas­es of the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the pub­lic da­ta in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty plat­form and the elec­tron­ic iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme (e-ID).

In the meet­ing of EU and CELAC Econ­o­my and Fi­nance Min­is­ters, or­gan­ised by Spain and CAF in Sep­tem­ber 2023, a re­newed EU in­vest­ment agen­da in the re­gion was pro­mot­ed, pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced in Ju­ly at the EU-CELAC Heads of State Sum­mit.”

“With the par­tic­i­pa­tion of 60 Fi­nance Min­is­ters from both sides of the At­lantic, it was a cru­cial fo­rum to de­sign strate­gies to over­come gaps in the triple green, dig­i­tal, and so­cial tran­si­tion,” CAF added.