Excellencies,
Honourable ministers,
Distinguished colleagues,
It is my pleasure to join you today.
My sincere thanks to CANTO for their kind invitation,
and to the Government and the people of the Dominican Republic for their characteristically Caribbean hospitality.
In line with the CANTO 2026 theme, I would like to speak about: “Building Resilient, Secure, and Innovative Digital Ecosystems to Elevate Caribbean Competitiveness”.
Digital transformation is essential to building such ecosystems,
as ITU’s Member States affirmed at last year’s World Telecommunication Development Conference in Baku.
The resulting Baku Action Plan provides the framework for translating that commitment into action. In the plan are the Americas’ Regional Initiatives which reflect the regional priorities.
We know digital connectivity has become essential infrastructure,
every bit as critical as transport, energy and water systems.
This is the principle behind our Smart Seas project for Caribbean Small-Scale Fishers, which is providing fishing communities with digital tools and connectivity to ensure they benefit from digital transformation.
Our work also extends to building inclusive public services,
especially through open-source artificial intelligence.
We recently opened an Open-Source Programme Office in Trinidad and Tobago, and we continue to engage with regional leaders to deepen the inclusivity. This builds on a discussion at the 21st Caribbean Strategic ICT Ministerial Seminar in 2024,
when I highlighted the rapid evolution of technologies,
from artificial intelligence and robotics to space technologies.
The task now is to move from discussing these technologies to deploying them.
For Small Island Developing States, this agenda is reinforced by Resolution 16 of WTDC-25. At the UN level, the 4th International Conference on SIDS culminated in the adoption of the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS.
The Development Bureau itself now has a dedicated division to address the needs of SIDS, along with Least Developed Countries and Landlocked Developing Countries.
Let me turn to the increasing importance of regulation.
I was delighted to hear the Caribbean's strong voice at our recent Global Symposium for Regulators in Ankara.
The role of regulators now involves mapping infrastructure to model and ensure resilience. Here in the Caribbean, we have been working with the Jamaican regulator to reform satellite rates. Regulators around the world are being called on to review their satellite licensing frameworks.
At the 2026 Global Symposium for Regulators, we launched a non-geostationary Framework Toolkit, alongside a powerful suite of tools:
our Digital Readiness Framework;
the Connectivity Planning Platform, CPP;
and the Global Economic Model and Study tool, GEMS.
The underlying context is the ongoing expansion of connectivity.
ITU’s most recent Facts and Figures Report showed the Caribbean internet usage at 74.2%, above the global average at 73.6%.
The next step is ensuring connectivity is affordable, reliable, secure and meaningful.
These priorities were reflected during the recent ITU Regional Development Forum for the Americas, and they also informed the partnership between the Development Bureau and CANTO, solidified by the Joint Declaration of Intent which we signed earlier today.
We have worked with Caribbean partners to help develop National Emergency Telecommunications Plans. The Regional Initiative on resilient infrastructure explicitly recognizes the particular needs of vulnerable populations. Latin America and the Caribbean is the second most disaster-prone region in the world,
so we have pre-positioned emergency telecommunications equipment in the ITU Area Office in Barbados, which enabled us to help after Hurricane Beryl in 2024 and Hurricane Melissa in 2025.
The Caribbean was the first region to launch Early Warnings for All, and in Belize and Guyana, the initiative is strengthening multi-hazard early warning systems, while we recently convened the first EW4All Consultative Workshop in Suriname.
We are also working on the Regional Cell Broadcast Emergency Warning System, which can deliver emergency alerts within seconds.
Beyond saving lives, digital is transforming whole economies.
We are building capacity so that young people, including women and girls, have the digital skills to participate in new industries,
especially through the ITU Academy, Digital Transformation Centres and ITU Academy Centres, as well as the 18 ITU Acceleration Centres and the Digital Innovation Board,
under our Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development.
The goal of digital transformation also underpins our work on creating an enabling environment. Indeed, the unique vulnerabilities and opportunities of this region helped shape our GSR-26 Best Practice Guidelines. Meanwhile, our Expert on Demand initiative is helping countries develop up-to-date ICT regulatory frameworks.
Our work on harmonized ICT regulations has strengthened the foundations of the CARICOM Single ICT Space. Let me also mention the Industry Advisory Group on Development Issues and the Chief Regulatory Officers meeting within the GSR.
Since 2023 when I took office, the membership of the Development Bureau has grown substantially, with 164 new Sector Members, associates and academia. 12 of these are from the Caribbean. We have also had a record number of partnerships and resources mobilised.
We are making great progress on digital inclusion,
with our Global Youth Summit in 2025 hosted in this region,
and International Girls in ICT Day co-hosted by the Americas and Europe.
Meanwhile, the 15th ITU Caribbean CyberDrill was held in Nassau last year. We also continue to support Caribbean countries establish Computer Incident Response Teams, and organise cyber exercises and institutional capacity development.
Finally, let me mention our new mandate on AI and emerging technologies. nWe must ensure the AI revolution does not widen existing development gaps. That’s why we’ve created GENIE.AI,
ITU's open-source framework for trustworthy public sector Generative AI. Last month, we launched the ITU-UNESCO Joint Capacity Development Programme on AI in the Public Sector.
And the ITU Academy offers a wide range of courses on AI.
Excellencies, let me end with a prediction.
And you can quote me on this! “By building resilient and secure infrastructure, bridging the digital skills gap, and putting in place innovative digital ecosystems, we will achieve universal, meaningful, affordable connectivity and elevate Caribbean competitiveness”.
But, no single institution can do that alone, which is why we early formalized our partnership with CANTO through the signing of a Joint Declaration of Intent, establishing a framework for continuing cooperation!
Thank you!
