Industry: High-tech Industry Region: Haiti Transaction price: $1 million Transaction method: equity financing
Brief introduction:
Project objectives: The development objectives of the project are to increase access to broadband services in Haiti and to build a digitally resilient foundation for disaster response.
Details:
Component 1: Enabling environment for digital infrastructure and services.
Subcomponent 1.1:
Support the development of competitive digital infrastructure and services markets. This sub-component supports the development of a competitive digital infrastructure market, the provision of high-quality and affordable services, increased resilience of infrastructure, and the adoption of digital services to enhance the government's emergency response capacity. This sub-component will support these entities in developing sectoral strategies and regulations to strengthen their technical, monitoring and management capacities. Specific activities include:
(I) In consultation with digital economy stakeholders, develop strategic and regulatory tools for CONATEL, MTPTC and CNIGS, and strengthen their institutional capacity;
(ii) Establish service quality monitoring systems, implementation methods and capabilities to monitor service speed, network downtime and repair time as a measure of network resilience in the event of a disaster;
(iii) Establishment of spectrum monitoring systems and enforcement methods and capabilities;
(iv) Develop and adopt action plans to improve the resilience of broadband networks (i.e., ensure they are built in accordance with international standards and specifications for resilience) and digital services to support disaster recovery and emergency communications, including support for geographic information system (GIS) infrastructure systems and GIS data recovery, consistent with the overall DRM strategy.
Sub-component 1.2:
Strengthening digital skills. The sub-component aims to strengthen digital skills to better equip individuals and businesses across Haiti for future jobs and the economy, as well as for online activities.
Specific activities will include:
(a) Preliminary studies to assess the gaps and needs in the digital capacities of the various target beneficiaries;
(b) Funding of digital competencies training programmes to meet the needs of targeted beneficiaries, including public employees, health and education professionals and civil defence agency personnel. Under the Interior Ministry and local authorities, their task is to collect and disseminate emergency alerts and warnings and to manage risk data. The program will provide this training in collaboration with local partners such as the National University of Haiti, the higher School of Information and electronics, incubators, operators, the local administration, and the Haitian diaspora. Training programs will create more jobs in digital professions and businesses.
Component 2: Broadband connection.
Sub-component 2.1:
Support for key public service beneficiaries and the general public to access broadband services. Under this sub-component, GoH will provide broadband connections to government agencies, health and education facilities and several public Wi-Fi hotspots across the country. GoH will purchase broadband services from private operators to serve health and education facilities, GoH ministries and agencies and public Wi-Fi hotspots across the country for an estimated period of 10 years. The first activity will provide reliable broadband connections for key GoH and public sector functions and anchor subscribers for operators over a considerable period of time, thus allowing them to invest in network expansion and upgrades.
Specific activities will include:
(a) Preparation of feasibility studies and funding modalities to determine the detailed parameters of tenders and contract documents;
(b) The provision of broadband services by private operators on terms and conditions acceptable to the Bank and in accordance with the specifications documented in the feasibility study, financing model and project operations manual.
Sub-component 2.2:
Enhancing the network service capabilities of major public service institutions. In addition to providing connectivity services for the component, the project will also fund the development of basic government network services and equipment to improve the efficiency of service delivery, as well as the modernization and digitization of government buildings.
Specific activities will include:
(a) Establishment and maintenance of dedicated government wide area network (GWANs) services to connect government buildings and institutions throughout the country;
(b) Financing of information technology equipment and software (e.g., management network services for end-user equipment, Internet protocol telephones, communications rooms, secure servers), where necessary;
(c) If the operators do not have the necessary energy resources to operate it equipment on their premises, they should be equipped with renewable energy sources. This sub-component will include connectivity, data management and storage services for a number of public sector agencies. Including health, education and digital rights management, such as the provision of management services between universities, schools and the Ministry of Education; Hospitals, clinics and the Ministry of Health, as well as local government. The data store will also take an elastic approach to ensure data recovery in the event of a disaster. The government WAN will contract with the private sector through a renewable multi-year service contract.
Component 3:
Project management and implementation. This component will support UCE's ability to manage and oversee project implementation, monitor and evaluate project objectives and results. It will also support capacity development and knowledge sharing among key beneficiaries listed in MTPTC, CONATEL, UCE and POM. Ability development and knowledge sharing activities will include training, the purchase of goods and expert consultant recruitment, support the UCE staff in project management and implementation of the key areas such as, information and communication technology, technical advice, the trustee, environmental and social security measures, the use of monitoring and evaluation, citizen participation tools and strategy and raise awareness of communication.
Component 4:
Emergency component. This component provides an immediate response to a qualifying crisis or emergency and includes a contingency fund for the prompt payment of the uncommitted balance of crisis response from other components. This component will be triggered and paid in accordance with the emergency action plan prepared by the Government and the manner of implementation set out by CERC in the CERC POM.