The Ministry of Science, Energy, and Technology will be receiving funding to strengthen Jamaica’s cybersecurity framework.

Portfolio Minister, Daryl Vaz, said that commencing this financial year, US$6.5 million in loans and US$3.5 million in grants will be provided through a project jointly funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

He was making his contribution to the 2023/2024 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives on May 10.

“In addition, through technical cooperation, it is anticipated that the country could benefit from an additional US$500,000 for cybersecurity policy and legislation,”  Vaz said.

He also informed that the Jamaica Cyber Incident Response Team (JaCIRT) has made significant advancements in the acquisition of resources such as hardware, software and subscriptions for the continued improvement in the delivery of cybersecurity and cyber-incident response services to Jamaica.

“For the 2023/2024 fiscal year, we are increasing the budgetary allocation by $20 million,” Mr Vaz said.

He noted that the increased allocation will ensure the coordination of public-private partnerships focused on the identification, analysis and mitigation of risks from cyber and physical threats to Internet-facing resources, national critical information infrastructure, and national critical infrastructure.