CAF approves USD 120 million to support Trinidad and Tobago’s digital transformation

CAF—development bank of Latin America—approved a USD 120 million loan for Trinidad and Tobago to accelerate digitalization of the state and productive sector, while also contributing to mitigating the impacts of the pandemic and closing digital gaps in the country.  

The funds will be managed by the Ministry of Finance with technical support from the Ministry of Digital Transformation, going towards regulatory and institutional change, management and planning initiatives, with a positive impact on service indicators, efficiency and closing digital gaps. The planned actions are designed around the following program components: 

• Digital government: Creating an institutional and public policy framework for digitalization of the state, with initiatives such as a cybersecurity strategy development, updating citizen service platforms, interoperability between ministries, the digital identification project, investment in a data center, development of a government cloud and an ecosystem for online tax payments, among others. 
• The Digital Economy: Supporting the strategic objective of increasing the contribution of the ICT sector, and looking at digital solutions for productive sector development, such as blockchain technologies in the agriculture sector and digital payment systems, use of ICTs for climate resilience, creating a software developers hub and others.
• Digital society: Initiatives to massively broaden access to ICTs, for digital inclusion of groups with lower access. The goal is to support digital literacy and capacity building in excluded communities, as well as investing in infrastructure for isolated areas and free Wi-Fi. 

“This loan adds to the Trinidad and Tobago government’s efforts to close the digital divide, promote the information society and expand the digital ecosystem in the country. CAF not only supports these efforts through this loan, but also with technical assistance for digital transformation in the financial, education, agriculture and tax collection sectors,” said CAF executive president Sergio Díaz-Granados. 

The digital agenda is a key part of the Trinidad and Tobago government’s development plan for 2030, which includes improvement of public services through e-government, digitalization of the productive sector and closing technological gaps as part of its lines of action.

In the last six years (2016–2021), CAF approved operations for Trinidad and Tobago for a total of USD 1.38 billion, and during the same period has disbursed USD 1.26 billion in priority sectors for the island nation aligned with the CAF strategy. CAF’s portfolio went from USD 300 million in 2017 to USD 1.16 billion in 2021.