The Government of The Bahamas wishes to advise the public that the ‘Alert Bahamas’ pilot period expired in December 2017.
The pilot solution was provided by Unified Messaging Systems Americas (UMS) on a pro-bono basis as part of the Sustainable Nassau initiative, and led by the Office of The Prime Minister with technical assistance from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The solution was first introduced to the public in September 2017, and provided the opportunity for NEMA, Bahamas Information Services, the Royal Bahamas Police Force and the Department of Meteorology to disseminate critical information to the public via multiple communication channels (SMS messages, email, and Facebook), comprising a national alert messaging system.
The Government of The Bahamas extends its gratitude to its partners (UMS, IDB, BTC and Aliv) for their generous participation in making this pilot possible.
On December 12th, 2017, during a mission of the Sustainable Nassau IDB team, representatives of the participating agencies and project partners met to discuss the lessons learned from the project. There was consensus that the experience will enable the Government to be in a better position when developing appropriate terms of reference for a longer-term solution. The pilot implementation also provided insight into the enabling structures and frameworks that would be necessary to facilitate the effective implementation of a national alert messaging system.
The Government also thanks the public for its tremendous support and for the feedback provided over various platforms. Over three thousand persons registered on the citizen portal at www.alertbahamas.com to participate in the pilot and received messages from all four participating agencies. The wider national community and visitors would have also received hurricane and tropical storm warnings from NEMA.
A satisfaction survey targeted at persons registered on the portal was conducted, and revealed that registrants were generally happy about the opportunity to participate in such an initiative, and were very encouraging of a longer term solution. A number of useful recommendations were also provided that will be taken into consideration by the Government as it explores options for procuring a permanent solution. The results of the satisfaction survey are available on the Alert Bahamas web portal (www.alertbahamas.com).
It should be noted that login and registration capabilities have been deactivated on the web portal, and all personal information registered during the pilot period has been securely discarded in accordance with the UMS privacy and data protection policy and data protection requirements of The Bahamas.
On behalf of the Government, the Office of the Prime Minister again thanks all stakeholders and participants.
