Dennis Zulu, the UN Resident Coordinator in Jamaica, writes about the impact of artificial intelligence on the country and other Small Island Developing States, how and why they can contribute to technological governance and the findings from a UN-supported AI Readiness Assessment.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is moving faster than many of our institutions, laws and public conversations. It is already influencing how people access information, how governments and businesses make decisions, how students learn and how societies prepare for crises. Whether we are fully ready or not, AI is becoming part of everyday life.
That is why the real question is no longer whether AI will shape our future. It already is. The real question is who will shape AI, under what rules and in whose interests.
For Jamaica and other Small Island Developing States, this is not an abstract or distant debate. It is practical and deeply consequential. Technologies designed elsewhere are shaping our economies, information ecosystems and capacity to respond to climate and development challenges. If global norms and rules are created without the participation of countries like ours, then we risk living with the consequences of decisions we had little role in shaping.
The Role of Governance
This is why governance matters. The oversight of AI should not aim to suppress innovation or slow progress for its own sake. Rather, it should create the conditions under which innovation can thrive responsibly while ensuring that technological advancement serves the public good.
This is where the United Nations has a unique and indispensable role. In 2024, member states adopted the Global Digital Compact, an important milestone in digital cooperation. Significantly, it included a dedicated focus on AI. Its message was unmistakable: AI holds enormous promise for advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, but it also carries serious risks, and those risks should not be faced by any one country alone.
The Compact is directly reflected in the UN's work in Jamaica. For example, the Joint Programme on Digital Transformation for Education is a $3.7 million initiative led by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with funding from the Joint SDG Fund. The programme is using AI-powered tools to improve real-time data on educational outcomes and teacher placements for more than 450,000 students. Complementing this, UNESCO and the Jamaica Teaching Council brought together over 400 teachers in October 2025 to provide training on responsible AI use in classrooms.
Following Hurricane Melissa, UNESCO also launched a regional training programme equipping Caribbean media professionals with AI-supported tools for disaster communication and misinformation verification.
For Jamaica, the Global Digital Compact is not merely about global diplomacy. It is about development policy in the most practical sense.
Caption: With UN support, Jamaica is leveraging international frameworks and national programmes to use AI as a stepping stone for development.
Photo: © UNRCO Jamaica
A Country Moving Towards Readiness
AI systems built on biased data can entrench discrimination. Weak governance can expose people to surveillance, misinformation and exploitation. Deepfakes and synthetic media can undermine trust, distort democratic discourse and weaken social cohesion. Countries with limited regulatory capacity are often the most vulnerable to these harms, even as they have the most to gain from the positive uses of technology.
UNESCO facilitated an AI Readiness Assessment for Jamaica, making it one of the first Caribbean countries to complete the process, which directly informed the Government's decision to draft a National AI Policy.
The Readiness Assessment reveals a country with a solid foundation but significant gaps to address before it can fully harness AI for development.
Jamaica has a meaningful legal groundwork, including the Data Protection Act and Cybercrimes Act, a National AI Task Force and strong tertiary education institutions. However, the assessment is candid about where action is urgently needed: there is no standalone AI law or dedicated oversight body, and research and development investment stands at a critically low 0.06 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with just 13 AI-related publications recorded between 2019 and 2024. AI infrastructure and computing capacity remain largely confined to academia, gender and community-level AI literacy gaps remain unaddressed, and disparities in rural and urban connectivity still persist alongside frequent power outages.
Concerns around data control, inclusivity in AI systems and the absence of an environmentally-friendly AI framework round out the picture of a country that is well-positioned to lead the Caribbean in ethical AI governance, but must move decisively from assessment to implementation.
Such efforts matter because good governance does not begin only when a global agreement is signed. It begins with national preparedness, public awareness, institutional capacity and inclusive dialogue.
Caption: Jamaica was one of the first Caribbean countries to complete the AI Readiness Assessment.
Photo: © UNICEF Jamaica/Talk Up Yout
Youth as Changemakers
There is also an important misconception that needs to be challenged: governance is not the enemy of innovation. Good governance is what makes innovation sustainable. Trust drives adoption. Ethics enable scale. Clear and fair rules create the confidence needed for innovation to benefit society broadly, rather than a narrow few.
This is especially important for young people. Across Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, there is tremendous creativity, talent and entrepreneurial energy. The future of AI should not be written only in a handful of global capitals or corporate headquarters. It must also be shaped in our schools, universities, start-ups and communities.
Efforts such as UNICEF’s AI-powered Learning Passport, a digital education platform, continuously rely on feedback from students. Furthermore, the accessible digital textbooks that UNICEF developed using AI illustrate how technology can serve the next generation, especially children with disabilities.
Caption: Across Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, there is tremendous creativity, talent and entrepreneurial energy.
Photo: © UNICEF/Tucker
AI for Humanity
The choices being made now will have lasting consequences. We can allow AI to widen existing divides, or we can govern it in ways that expand opportunity and inclusion. We can be passive recipients of a technology shaped elsewhere, or active participants in defining how it serves humanity.
Jamaica should choose to participate, lead where it can and insist that the voices of Small Island Developing States are heard.
In the digital age, even the smallest states have both the right and the responsibility to help shape the rules that will define our common future. AI must be governed with humanity at its centre.
This blog was written by Dennis Zulu, the UN Resident Coordinator in Jamaica, and adapted from an article originally published in The Gleaner. Please visit the UN team's website for more information about the UN's work in Jamaica.