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Good practice Imported

InnovaChat — the OECS Commission's AI Assistant for Regional Citizen Enquiries

Saint Lucia · Castries · See the Saint Lucia profile · See the Castries profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 83% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

In June 2025 the OECS Commission launched InnovaChat, an AI assistant answering citizen, educator and business questions on OECS rights, travel and programmes across nine Eastern Caribbean member states, built pro bono by a young Grenadian developer.

9
OECS full member states served
InnovaChat — the OECS Commission's AI Assistant for Regional Citizen Enquiries

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Commission
Period
2025–present
Keywords
regional government, digital government, citizen services

Context

On 23 June 2025, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Commission, headquartered in Castries, Saint Lucia, launched InnovaChat, an AI-powered digital assistant built by Grenadian developer Joshua Andall of InnovaChat Solutions. The tool answers questions about the OECS Economic Union, the Free Movement of Persons Regime and regional programmes for the organisation's nine full member states: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands.

Activities

InnovaChat is trained to retrieve and synthesise answers from official OECS sources rather than open web content, targeting educators, tourism operators, healthcare professionals, immigration officers, diplomats and airline agents who need authoritative guidance on cross-border rights and eligibility criteria. OECS Director General Dr Didacus Jules described it as 'equivalent to having a help desk attendant available 24/7.' The Commission has said it intends to extend the assistant into education, trade and youth-mobility services.

Results

The launch coverage documents adoption and design choices but not usage metrics: no query volumes, accuracy rates or user-satisfaction figures have been published as of this review.

Conclusions

The tool was built pro bono by a single external developer rather than a funded, in-house team -- a scale and durability risk for a nine-country service.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — Built pro bono by a single external developer; no funding arrangement disclosed.
Time to results
Short (< 1 year) — Launched 23 June 2025; extension into education, trade and youth-mobility services described as intended.
Staffing & skills
Joshua Andall / InnovaChat Solutions (single external developer, pro bono), OECS Commission

Conditions for success

  • Retrieving from official OECS sources rather than open web content, for authoritative answers

Common failure modes

  • Built pro bono by a single external developer rather than a funded, in-house team -- a scale and durability risk for a nine-country service
  • No query volume, accuracy or satisfaction data published

Where it fits

Governance type
regional intergovernmental organisation
Scale
regional (9 OECS member states)
Income level
upper-middle-income small island states

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Data sources

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