Convening for Collaborative Intelligence
Inter-American Development Bank and Government of Trinidad and Tobago – Mission-Oriented Innovation Pilot
Context & Challenge
Trinidad and Tobago faced a classic coordination failure: digital transformation initiatives existed, but without a unifying structure to align ministries, policy, funding, and delivery around shared societal outcomes. Digital ID and benefits reform were technically feasible yet institutionally fragmented, politically sensitive, and at risk of incrementalism rather than transformation.
What We Did
Designed and led a national Mission-Oriented Innovation (MOI) pilot for the Ministry of Digital Transformation, funded by the Inter-American Development Bank, using the e-ID and Social Benefits Wallet as a flagship mission. The work established mission governance, targets, metrics, risk management, stakeholder engagement architecture, and a 10-year funding and scaling strategy, turning a single program into a coherent, long-term transformation agenda.
What Was Different
Instead of treating e-ID as an IT project, the work reframed it as digital public infrastructure with explicit social outcomes, long-term targets, and shared stewardship across government, industry, academia, and civil society. The mission model separated product delivery from mission stewardship, allowing day-to-day execution to move fast while maintaining strategic coherence over a decade-long transformation agenda.
Impact & Learning
The pilot delivered a formal mission statement and targets to 2035, a cross-sector Mission Council and Secretariat model, a metrics and risk framework, and a costed 10-year investment roadmap. It positioned Trinidad and Tobago as a Caribbean leader in applied mission-driven digital transformation and created a repeatable blueprint for extending MOI to energy transition, inclusive growth, food security, and education. The core lesson: complex public transformations accelerate when governance, funding, and accountability are designed around missions, not programs.
