This scoping study was conducted within an overarching research project “Harnessing Open Data to Achieve Development Results in Latin America and the Caribbean”, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and executed by the Caribbean Open Institute (COI) in collaboration with partners Iniciativa Latinoamericana por los Datos Abiertos (ILDA), Fundacion Avina, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Organization of American States (OAS). The larger project explores how open data policies and strategies can contribute to the development agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) through the following general objectives:
1. To improve understanding of the demand for, and use of, Open Data for development in the Caribbean
2. To support the collaborative development of products and services between government, civil society, academic institutions and entrepreneurs
3. To promote the development and adoption of emerging open standards that enable open data initiatives to scale up
4. To explore mechanisms for open data to address the needs of marginalized groups, focusing particularly on, but not limited to, youth, women and urban poor.
This particular study is one of five regional sector-specific scoping studies undertaken in support of Objective 1. It examines the nature, use and potential impacts of open data in fisheries and marine protected areas (MPAs) in a sample of Caribbean countries: Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Bahamas, Jamaica and Dominican Republic.

This paper estimates the potential impact of Open Government Data on the Jamaican economy at a macro level and at sector-specific levels, by scaling the expected GDP contributions derived from a meta-analysis of the existing literature The results of this analysis show that Open Data implementation has the potential to contribute between JA$2.2 and JA$2.9 billion to Jamaica’s economy through the Education sector and JA 10 billion through the Agricultural Sector. Similar initiatives in the Tourism sector, are projected to improve productivity between 1-10%, realizing a potential economic impact of between JA$ 2.4 and JA$ 23.7 billion.

Presentation to RADA-CftC Fellowship Steering Committee to share design research early findings and discuss opportunities for intervention and prioritization.

The popularity of innovation fellowships has never been greater.Around the globe, enterprising, civic minded individuals seeking to increase the capacity of civic organizations to operate and of citizens to engage with them are designing fellowship programs to support their goals.

This report is an attempt to share insight into the design of innovation fellowships.It is co-designed with the sta! and mentors of Code for the Caribbean and Reboot, based on both direct experience and interviews with fellows and fellowship administrators past and present, as well as a literature review of the current public documents around innovation fellowships.