Basseterre, St. Kitts, December 12, 2016 (SKNIS): St. Kitts and Nevis was recently awarded for its major improvements in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector during the 14th World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium (WTIS) held in Botswana from November 21-23.
The Honourable Vincent Byron Jr., Minister of Justice, Legal Affairs and Communications, who accepted the awards on behalf of St. Kitts and Nevis, updated the general public on the awards and the accomplishments St. Kitts and Nevis made in the ICT sector, noting that the awards “validate once more another measure of how good St. Kitts and Nevis people are doing in our economy.”
“The two awards says that St. Kitts and Nevis is the most dynamic country for ICT’s throughout the world. We have been told that the facts are there and that there is no other country worldwide that has done better in our ICT development than St. Kitts and Nevis,” said Minister Byron, during the sitting of Parliament for the recently concluded 2017 Budget, noting that such an accomplishment is something to be proud of.
He referenced the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) “Measuring the Information Society Report, 2016” which clearly outlined the accomplishments made by St. Kitts and Nevis and other countries in the region.
“There has been greater improvement in ICT use than access. Countries from around the world showed strong improvements in performance,” said the Minister of Communications. “The greatest improvement was achieved by St. Kitts and Nevis which rose from 54th place in 2016 to 34th place in 2016, and as such they gave us these awards that says IDI 2016 Dynamic Country Award. Very substantial gains were also made by two of its neighbours in the Eastern Caribbean, Dominica and Grenada. St. Kitts and Nevis experienced a very substantial and rapid increase in active mobile broadband subscriptions, building on a strong performance in mobile cellular subscriptions. The mobile broadband penetration rate increased from just 18.6 per 100 inhabitants in 2014 to 71.0 in 2015”
Minister Byron noted that there are a number of pointers that led to access, the use, and skills involved that were used to give such a ranking that made St. Kitts and Nevis number one. These included but are not limited to persons who have fixed telephone lines, mobile phones, international internet bandwidth and computers, as well as the percentage of persons with internet access and who uses the internet.
Where the skills are concerned, he noted that questions were asked such as the average number of years people go to school in a household, the secondary gross enrollment ratio and graduates of tertiary institutions. All of the factors, he explained are then compiled in an index and done on a worldwide level before creating a ranking.
According to ITU, the Measuring the Information Society Report 2016 is widely recognized as the repositioning of the world’s most reliable and impartial global data and analysis on the state of global ICT development and is extensively relied upon by governments, international organizations, development banks and private sector analysts and investors worldwide.