5.1.4 Community Development The key objective of the Programmes and Projects in the Community Development area of focus is to leverage the power of ICT into the country’s response to critical issues such as poverty reduction, social justice and gender equity and equality, institutional strengthening of the Ministry, collaboration, cooperative development and stakeholder empowerment, and finally disaster preparedness and recovery. Some aspects of these initiatives have already begun or are being planned. It is important that at a community level, from the ground up that the ICT infrastructure introduced delivers value to the community and its residents. This means that the community must see value in these technologies, and must be prepared and equipped to exploit its enabling capacity. It is recognised that stronger communities mean a more resilient society and generally results in a more productive country. This focus area has three Programmes, namely: Community Empowerment Ministry ICT Development Community Integration The Community Empowerment Programme promotes the development and implementation of Projects that use ICT to enable community development and poverty alleviation. A policy framework will be created for the governance of this programme involving broad-based representation across the community development stakeholder group. Research will be done to identify successful ICT-enabled community development projects across the world; and the experiences and learning from such projects will be codified and transferred to other communities. The assistance of international agencies will be utilised to assist with this knowledge transfer effort. The use of ICT at a community level, in community centres and by all categories of users from the community will be encouraged. And finally, a funding mechanism for community based ICT projects and projects will be created utilising the financial and other capabilities of the public sector and with a special focus on utilisation of the enabling capacity of the private sector. This Programme will include Projects that seek to facilitate regional disaster preparedness, including the identification of funding and development and expansion of the existing infrastructure which includes appropriate application software. The Ministry of Community Development’s ICT Development Programme focuses on the institutional strengthening of the Ministry itself through ICT-enabled processes and the general integrating of ICT. This will include amongst other things the development of a Strategic ICT Plan for the Ministry, identification of funding for its implementation and the development of internal capacity to manage the success of such implementation. The Community Integration Project involves the development of an electronic portal which will allow networking, collaboration and the consolidation of the service delivery capacity amongst all social development partners, namely: NGOs, CBOs, Community Associations, Cooperatives and Family Service Organisations. The mechanism for the management and operations of this Portal will need to be developed so that it benefits all partners equally, and the communities of interest directly. It will provide connectivity to other Ministries such as the Ministries of Agriculture and Tourism. The development of community level content for inclusion on the Portal is a useful initiative and can include the preparation of cultural artefacts which are of national interest or of interest to the Diaspora. 5.1.5 Health The e-Health Programme is designed to facilitate greater equity in the allocation and use of healthcare resources by exploiting ICT mechanisms to promote quality healthcare delivery and management. The Programme will encompass technology components such as a web-enabled Health Information System (HIS) and the enactment of legislation, protocols and public education for utilisation of the health information which will be created. It includes the introduction of tele-medicine on a larger scale and improved connectivity amongst health institutions. It proposes a comprehensive staff information system and the piloting of the electronic tagging of patients. The Programmes builds on current initiatives by expanding on the computers that have been introduced at the Ministry, MCMH and the district clinics, and on the NHIS that is being introduced. It is recognized that in this context, the HIS will collect standardized data and facilitate the retrieval, processing and reporting on the healthcare delivery system. However, it must protect patient’s privacy and confidentiality and must be easy to use. In so doing the HIS must be robust and protected from disasters and must be easily accessible to health care providers and patients. It must improve the continuity of care and the provision of quality healthcare services to the population of SVG, and enable greater equity in the allocation and use of healthcare resources, given that SVG is a multi-island state with obvious geographical challenges and vulnerabilities to disasters. The HIS must also Projects and Programmes P a g e | 67