The development objective of E-GRIP is to promote the efficiency, quality, and transparency of Public Services through the delivery of regionally integrated e-government applications that take advantage of economies of scale. In essence, the plan is to improve the quality of service offered by Government Offices to the General Public.
The Governments of Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have each received soft loan financing in the amount of 1.5 Million Special Drawing Rights from the World Bank for implementation of the EGRIP. The loans are being provided under a special facility of the concessional lending arm of the World Bank, the International Development Association (IDA). Antigua and Barbuda and St. Kitts and Nevis were interested in participating in EGRIP, but are ineligible for IDA financing.
In light of this, CDB was approached by the WB to co-finance the project in order to support participation by interested OECS countries. CDB’s review of the details of EGRIP identified two as being the most consistent with its strategic focus on Good Governance and its interest in promoting greater use of ICTs in the region. Based on this assessment, CDB indicated its support for EGRIP, in principle, and its willingness to prepare a proposal on providing grant financing for the six (6) OECS countries (Participating Countries) for consideration by its Board of Directors. The six (6) participating countries are Antigua & Barbuda, St Kitts, Dominica, St Lucia, Grenada and St Vincent & the Grenadines.
The Project Fund Distribution is as below:
|
Contributors |
USD |
% |
|
CDB |
2,500,000 |
19.2 |
|
WB |
9,600,000 |
73.5 |
|
Participating Countries |
951,020 |
7.3 |
|
Total |
13,051,020 |
100.0 |
The components of the project that Antigua will benefit from are:
- Subcomponent 1.3: ICT Standards and Total Cost of Ownership Optimisation
- Subcomponent 1.4: Regional E-Government Institutional Framework
- Subcomponent 2.4: E-Government Procurement
- Component 3: Project Management
Next Steps
All necessary pre-requisites for the first draw down from the Caribbean Development Bank have been met and submitted by Antigua & Barbuda. Once the CDB has formally confirmed this, shortly, the work on Subcomponent 1.3 will commence with the arrival of consultants from Price Waterhouse Cooper Jamaica and India.
These consultants will be carrying out evaluations of the methods of service provision currently utilized by Government Ministries/Departments. The list of Government Ministries/Departments being evaluated under this first component, include (but is not limited to) Finance, Immigration and Legal Affairs. Upon completion of the evaluations, the consultants will make recommendations as to possible solutions for achieving the overall development objective mentioned above.
The duration of this project is 18 months.
