A sig­nif­i­cant step to­wards re­gion­al dig­i­tal in­te­gra­tion was tak­en on Tues­day with the sign­ing of a €3 mil­lion Tech­ni­cal As­sis­tance Grant Agree­ment with the De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (CAF) and the Eu­ro­pean Union, the Gov­ern­ment has con­firmed.

A state­ment is­sued by the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs re­ports that the agree­ment will sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of a com­pre­hen­sive dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion plat­form. It is be­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed through the Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean In­vest­ment Fa­cil­i­ty, and is aligned with the EU’s Glob­al Gate­way Strat­e­gy that seeks to fos­ter dig­i­tal con­nec­tiv­i­ty around the world. The Min­istry notes that T&T has a long­stand­ing bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship with EU—both en­ti­ties will soon cel­e­brate their 50th an­niver­sary of co­op­er­a­tion.

The sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny, held at the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion on Feb­ru­ary 4, was at­tend­ed by Sen­a­tor Dr. Amery Browne, Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs; Sen­a­tor Has­sel Bac­chus, Min­is­ter of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion; Colm Im­bert MP, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance; Gi­an­piero Leonci­ni, Ex­ec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of CAF; and David Mogol­lón, Head of Co­op­er­a­tion of the Eu­ro­pean Union to Bar­ba­dos, East­ern Caribbean States, the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States and CARI­COM/CAR­I­FO­RUM.

In his ad­dress to the gath­er­ing, Min­is­ter Browne com­pli­ment­ed the lead­er­ship role of the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion, and he em­pha­sized the strate­gic im­por­tance of the agree­ment.

"This col­lab­o­ra­tion is cru­cial for ad­vanc­ing the dig­i­tal agen­da of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the broad­er CARI­COM re­gion,” Min­is­ter Browne stat­ed. “It demon­strates our com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able and in­clu­sive de­vel­op­ment and strength­ens our val­ued part­ner­ships with the Eu­ro­pean Union and CAF."

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry’s re­lease, the grant will fund the de­vel­op­ment of key dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture com­po­nents, in­clud­ing a na­tion­al elec­tron­ic iden­ti­ty sys­tem, a pub­lic da­ta in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty plat­form and a se­cure gov­ern­ment da­ta cen­tre. In ad­di­tion, it will sup­port re­gion­al work­shops fo­cused on fa­cil­i­tat­ing the free move­ment of peo­ple with­in the CARI­COM Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my and es­tab­lish­ing se­cure da­ta ex­change mech­a­nisms be­tween mem­ber states.

“This ini­tia­tive po­si­tions Trinidad and To­ba­go as a leader in re­gion­al dig­i­tal de­vel­op­ment and con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the ad­vance­ment of CARI­COM's in­te­gra­tion goals,” the Min­istry not­ed.

Both Mr. Leonci­ni and Mr. Mogol­lón re­it­er­at­ed their or­ga­ni­za­tions’ com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the re­gion's dig­i­tal ad­vance­ment, high­light­ing the project's po­ten­tial to em­pow­er cit­i­zens and pro­mote re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

Min­is­ter Im­bert al­so an­nounced at the event Trinidad and To­ba­go's up­com­ing as­sump­tion of the Chair­man­ship of the CAF Board of Di­rec­tors.