With the financial support from the European Commission, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is organizing a series of regional workshops. These workshops will convene policymakers and statisticians to deliberate on metrics for gauging progress towards universal and meaningful connectivity (UMC), analyze the persistent socio-economic and geographical divides, and harness data effectively to refine, monitor, and assess digital policies.

The regional workshop for the Caribbean was held from 11 to 13 June 2024 in Nassau, Bahamas, to provide an occasion to examine the concept of UMC and how to streamline it in national digital policies, how to improve the statistical capacity of countries in the region to produce and disseminate relevant statistical data, and how to use the data to identify good practices and policy recommendations. This workshop was organized in collaboration with the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority of Bahamas.

This workshop was intended for policymakers in charge of national policies and strategies for digital connectivity, and executives and experts responsible for the measurement of telecom/ICT development from ministries, national statistics offices (NSOs), regulators, telecom operators, research institutions, and other relevant organizations from the Caribbean.

The following topics were covered during the workshop:

• Embracing universal and meaningful connectivity: The new policy imperative (day 1)
• Data-driven decision making: Enhancing statistician-policymaker collaboration (day 2)
• Tracking UMC: Strategies for overcoming measurement challenges (day 3)

Participants from national statistical offices and other institutions that collect data on ICT were encouraged to complete two free, self-paced courses available through the ITU Academy: “Measuring digital development: ICT access and use by households and individuals” and “Measuring digital development: Telecommunication / ICT indicators” prior to the workshop.

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