Belize to Receive Assistance from United Nations’ ITU in Digitization Process

Michel Chebat

Representing Belize at the United Nations’ recent International Telecommunication Union conference was the Minister of Public Utilities, Michel Chebat. The event dealt with all aspects of telecommunication and digitization. But perhaps one of the greater moments for Belize came during the election of officers. As Minister Chebat told us today, there were some assurances for Belize of assistance coming our way.

Michel Chebat, Minister of Public Utilities

“The competition for the Director General was between the US candidate and the Russian candidate. And the US candidate won hands down. And we had the good fortune to meeting with her and speaking to her about Belize’s digitization process and where we want to go with this. And we’re happy to say that they have offered us assistance. The United Nations has a system where they come in and they look at what you’ve done and they help you to identify the gaps in this digitization process. So we’re looking forward to that. We spoke about how we can increase the participation of women in this whole digitization scheme. So we’re looking to them for assistance with that and how we can increase the participation of women. I must mention that Belize is only one of four countries that has a woman heading its e-governance digitization plan and we’re very proud of Ms Alexia Peralta who heads this department and has been doing tremendous work.”

For the first time at the conference, a CARICOM candidate from the Bahamas took part in the elections. He eventually lost to a delegate from Zimbabwe for the position.