The Dominican Republic implemented the RAM alongside the development of its AI strategy (ENIA), maximizing the information collected and quickly integrating UNESCO recommendations into its policies.
The implementation of the RAM and the development of the ENIA are the result of a collaborative effort between the Dominican government, UNESCO and other international organizations, who coordinated their efforts to create a coherent ENIA from the results of the RAM and a consultation process.
We draw the following key lessons from the application of RAM in the Dominican Republic:
The Dominican Republic informed its ENIA of the results of the RAM, integrating UNESCO recommendations throughout its policy.
There are gaps in the legal dimension, particularly regarding the need to update privacy and cybersecurity legislation. However, ENIA prioritizes work on these pieces of legislation alongside open data.
The focus is on tackling the gender gap in STEM fields through the Gender Statistics Strategy and the National Gender Equality and Equity Plan. However, there is still a significant gap in STEM fields where tertiary graduates are 20.27% male and 7.02% female, despite performing better in math and science than boys ( 324 against 327 in mathematics and 331 against 340 in science) when they were little.
Public spending on research and development remains relatively low, at 0.086% of GDP. This results in a low number of publications (0.0029 per thousand inhabitants), with only an average of 10 active authors per year. However, the number of higher education programs related to AI, machine learning, and data science is increasing, reaching 11 in 2023. Additionally, the Dominican Republic has an average of 3.72% graduates in ICT.
88% of the population has a mobile telephone subscription and 67% subscribes to active mobile broadband. This suggests a connectivity gap that needs to be addressed, especially considering the existing gap between the urban and rural population (49.2% versus 30.6%).
Finally, there is a significant gap in the provision of data to assess the economic dimension of AMR.
Key lessons:
1. The RAM is an excellent instrument for creating a baseline of the AI ecosystem and assessing its evolution over time.
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Evaluating AI strategies and implementing them is an ongoing challenge.
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The Dominican Republic used the initial results of the RAM to refine the draft ENIA and incorporated its recommendation to use it to complement existing indicators to evaluate the ENIA.
2. Making RAM a collaborative effort, not an evaluation, reduces resistance and improves collaboration.
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The RAM is a comprehensive assessment, and most (if not all) countries will discover gaps in their ecosystems when they apply it.
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Using the results to develop and prioritize policies to address gaps, as the Dominican Republic has done, reduces resistance among government stakeholders.
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Despite the identification of relevant gaps, the Dominican Republic RAM was analyzed alongside the ENIA, which proved useful in streamlining its acceptance and further adoption for future assessment.
3. The Dominican Republic’s legal plans are progressing, prioritizing data protection and cybersecurity.
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The RAM showed the need to update several laws to address AI governance.
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Existing and upcoming policies prioritize updating privacy and cybersecurity laws, as well as improving trust in government digital services and open data policies.
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Gaps still need to be filled, particularly in terms of procurement of AI systems or review of procedural safeguards related to AI.
4. Gender equality policies address the existing gap.
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The Dominican Republic has implemented policies (PLANEG) aimed at addressing gender inequality.
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The RAM highlights the need to focus gender equality plans on ICT, particularly with referents and positive actions.
5. Data collection is a priority
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Similar to other results from other RAMs, there were gaps in data availability in several areas.
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A high priority recommendation is to design the instruments and infrastructure necessary to collect the data required for a more comprehensive baseline.
