Minister of Information Technology emphasises the importance of Cybersecurity

Robust cybersecurity must be at the heart of the digital transformation that is currently taking place in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) says Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Information Technology, Camillo Gonsalves.

Gonsalves made the point at the national launch of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Caribbean Digital Transformation Project (CARDTP) Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Public Awareness Campaign which took place on Tuesday, September, 2,2025 at the conference room of the National Insurance Service (NIS).

Gonsalves noted that his presence at the launch indicated the government’s high level of political will and priority behind this particular project, and the importance of digital transformation as an overarching policy imperative of the administration.

The initiative, funded by the World Bank, has already been introduced in Dominica and St Lucia, and seeks to strengthen digital resilience across the OECS by educating the public on safe online practices and building trust in digital systems.

It forms part of a broader World Bank supported effort to enhance public service delivery, expand digital access, and modernize ICT infrastructure in the Eastern Caribbean.

The regional initiative has a total project cost of US$94 million, including a regional grant and national IDA credits for participating countries like St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Grenada, and St. Lucia.

Gonsalves noted at the launch that the critical nature of cyber security and protection against cyber-crime is a cornerstone component of what SVG is trying to do with digital transformation.

“I’m an old guy now, and I was having a conversation with my daughter about being cautious, and she said, ‘you know, daddy, there are people who can get your name and your phone number and your address of the internet’…

“And I said, when I was young, it was called a phone book…had your name, your address and a phone number, but the difference was that you could not leverage the phone book to do anything else, and it was a simpler time,” Gonsalves noted.

He said that now, the threats against people who use the internet regularly and not so regularly (but who have interactions with the state or with banks or with entities that are digitally connected) are immense.

“…in the Caribbean, we have not been sufficiently attuned to the level of those threats, because we have not been historically an attractive target for cyber criminals.

“It’s not that we are well protected, quite the contrary, we are in a house with the door and the windows open and the lights off, but we have not been attractive enough to serious cyber criminals,” Gonsalves said.

He, however, noted that as time marches on, our connectivity with businesses and each other as it relates to personal information, has reached the point now where we are attractive.

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