Montserrat ---- 27 Sept. 2006----Normally accused of lacking transparency, the newly elected Government of Montserrat is now collaborating with the country’s key media stakeholders and members of it’s general public, in an unprecedented historical attempt to establish a strategic development policy plan aimed at creating an economically successful ‘Virtual Montserrat'.

Dr. Annalee C. Babb, Ph.D., from Barbados, was contracted by Montserrat’s Government to submit a development strategy suitable to the country’s unique needs.  Specializing in telecommunications; ICT policy; and broadcasting/media, Dr. Babb’s approach included several visits to Montserrat to conduct extensive interviews with key members of Government, as well as the public.

Dr. Babb, conducted and analyzed her studies with assistance from former MP Claude Hogan last month, facilitated a 2-day workshop which aim was to develop “strategic scenarios for communications and development in the age of the new digital media.”

During the workshop’s opening ceremony, Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Sarita Francis called all stakeholders to come together to develop a strategy to be proud of.  Chief Minister Lowell Lewis, who participated throughout the workshop, agreed with Dr. Babb’s analysis that the country’s best alternative was to focus on markets outside of Montserrat.  While addressing attendees, CM Lewis said, “that there is an ongoing study to identify necessary communication links.”  He emphasized the need to get facilities in place so that a strategy can be developed.

The participants concluded that, in order to cater to a digital era, the creation of a ‘Virtual Montserrat’ was inevitable and unavoidable if the country’s economic success is to be achieved.

Working in a ten-year time period, four distinct potential future scenarios facing Montserrat were identified in the 2-day workshop:  ‘Paradise Lost?’; ‘Problems in Paradise’; ‘Opportunities in Paradise’; and ‘Virtual Paradise’.  These scenarios were intended to cover the worst-case scenario facing Montserrat to the best-case scenario; and everything in between.

The first of the four scenarios that emerged from this workshop had the most realistic ring of Montserrat’s current existence.  It opening says it all, “With its ineffective institutional framework and low financial, human and technology resources, Montserrat in 2016 is taking on the character of a ‘paradise lost’.  Staff members in Government and even in the private sector are largely untrained and those who have appropriate education are finding it difficult to keep up with the state-of-the-art in their fields due to lack of financing for life-long learning.”

Participants in another scenario, ‘Virtual Paradise’, indicated that all the participants of the workshop were able to identify a successful way forward for Montserrat.  According to the participants, “In the best of all possible futures, Montserrat can only be called a Virtual Paradise in the year 2016.  With its highly effective institutional frameworks and almost unlimited access to top-of-the-line financial, human and technology frameworks linked to public communications and the new digital media, the country now boasts state-of-the-art facilities in these areas, with positive spillover effects in a number of other economic and social sectors.

With one of the main policymakers in tow, participants concluded this phase of the workshop and agreed to make history by producing, by the end of this contract, the first jointly collaborated draft of a strategic development policy, with direct contributions of both the Government and the public of Montserrat.

Source: themontserratreporter.com