Bharrat Jagdeo: The journey of a World Champion

Former president of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo

Bharrat Jagdeo, former executive president of Guyana now holds a number of global leadership positions in the areas of sustainable development, green growth and climate change.
The achievement of this goal began with his presidency; although he was sought after by the World Bank even before the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) came to power in 1992. He, however, chose to serve his country first.
Born in Unity Village on the East Coast of Demerara in 1964, Jagdeo obtained a master’s degree in economics, from Patrice Lumumba People’s Friendship University in Moscow in 1990, and returned to Guyana and worked as an economist in the State Planning Secretariat, until the PPP/Civic victory in the October 1992 elections.
Following the triumph at the polls, Jagdeo became special advisor to the finance minister and the following year, he was appointed as junior finance minister. Two years later, he was promoted to senior finance minister.
During Jagdeo’s tenure as president, major economic and social reforms were undertaken in Guyana. When he relinquished office, Guyana was concluding its fifth consecutive year of strong economic growth, often out-pacing all other countries in South America. External debt had been almost halved, and external reserves were almost three times their 2006 level.
Unprecedented investment in social services took place during the Jagdeo presidency, enabling significantly improved access to education, rehabilitation of the health system, far-reaching land reform, the biggest expansion of the housing sector in Guyana’s history, expansion of the water and sanitation systems, and large-scale development of the road, river and air transport networks. New public procurement and competition laws were passed, and reforms to the tax, fiscal and investment regimes were implemented.

Climate change and LCDS
In his final term as president, he became a global advocate for international action to avert the worst extremes of climate change, and was described by the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change R K Pachauri, as “one of perhaps half a dozen heads of government who truly understands the issue”.
In line with the president’s global advocacy, his brainchild, Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) sets out a national scale, replicable model to protect Guyana’s 18 million hectare forest, to address the 17 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions that result from deforestation and forest degradation, and re-orient the Guyanese economy onto a long-term “low deforestation, low carbon, climate resilient trajectory”.
As part of building this global model, Norway is partnering with Guyana to provide up to US$250 million, by 2015, for avoided greenhouse gas emissions from Guyana’s forest. Guyana is using these payments and domestic resources to attract private investment in opportunities in clean energy and new low carbon economic sectors, as well as to make significant public investments in other social and economic priorities.
This has been described by CDKN, the UK-based climate policy network, as “maybe the most progressive low carbon development strategy in a low income country”.

International recognition and acclaim
During his tenure, he had gained personal recognition in the international arena, taking his country along with him.  Closer to home, he was appointed as the head of state, responsible for agriculture in the Caricom region. His Jagdeo Initiative was based on the programmes developed for Guyana which made the country food secure.
President Jagdeo was elected chairman of the board of governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in September, 2005. He occupied this position until September 2006.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) identified Jagdeo as one of their inaugural Young Global Leaders in 2006.
On the mainland, Jagdeo was a signatory to the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) Constitutive Treaty in May, 2008. In November, 2009, Guyana hosted the heads of government of UNASUR in Georgetown, as he took over the one year Pro- Tempore presidency.
Time Magazine named Jagdeo as one of their “Heroes of the Environment” in 2008, and he was awarded the United Nations “Champion of the Earth” award in 2010.
In early 2010, Jagdeo was requested to serve on the United Nations secretary general’s High Level Advisory Group on Climate Finance.
On February 6, 2010, a degree of honorary doctorate was conferred on President Jagdeo by the Patrice Lumumba People’s Friendship University in Moscow. He also received honorary doctorates from the D Y Patil University and TERI University in India.
Dr RK Pachauri, Nobel Prize laureate and chancellor of TERI University said, “There are very few heads of government in the world who understand the scientific, economic and social dimensions of climate change like President Jagdeo. His sense of the global injustice that climate change represents is combined with a very rare understanding of key issues, and a global vision of suitable solutions. What he has achieved in Guyana proves that developing countries can lead the way towards developing and implementing climate solutions. Now that he is no longer president of his country, I hope that his vision and skills can be deployed to an even greater extent to help the world face up to the climate challenges we are confronted with. President Jagdeo as a global leader of rare distinction must remain in the vanguard of global actions for meeting the challenge of climate change.”
President Jagdeo was awarded the Pushkin Medal by the government of Russia, and the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award by the government of India. Jagdeo is a patron of the Delhi-based World Sustainable Development Forum.
In 2011, heads of state and other leaders from the world’s rainforest countries asked him to be “Roving Ambassador for the Three Basins” (Amazon, Congo Basin, South East Asia).
In March 2012, the world’s largest and oldest environmental organisation, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), announced that President Jagdeo would become their high level envoy for sustainable development in forest countries and an IUCN patron of nature.
He is also a patron of the World Sustainability Forum and previously served on the United Nations’ Secretary General’s Advisory Group on Climate Finance, which explored ways to raise US$100 billion by 2020 for investment in the developing world’s efforts to combat climate change.
Paying tribute to President Jagdeo in 2011, former Commonwealth Secretary General Sir Shridath Ramphal stated:
“Besides his acknowledged regional leadership – leadership in Caricom – nowhere better exemplified than in his opposition to the Economic partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union. He stood alone out of conviction that what was being concluded was bad for the region: a conviction in which he was to be proved right even before the ink of signature was dry.
“He gave leadership too in the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) of which he was an early chairman – constituting Guyana as a bridge between the Caribbean and South America, and thereby enhancing our country’s importance to both…The president’s internationalism has earned more than acknowledgement of the contributions he can make at the global level; it has won him honour for his special capacities and competences and achievements.”

Latest acclaim
Recently, he was elected the first chair of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), in Seoul, Korea. GGGI’s agenda is centred on the popularisation of the green growth model as alternative development strategies for emerging economies. At the time of his election, the Republic of Korea was honoured by being nominated as the host country for the secretariat of the Green Climate Fund.
This fund was established during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Conference of Parties in 2010 with a mandate to channel funds from industrialised countries to developing ones to support adaptation and mitigation to climate change.
At a press conference in Seoul on the day of his election, Jagdeo said that, “most countries recognise the need for new models of development, they know the old ways no longer work. However, they don’t yet see enough evidence of how they can transition to new ways of balancing prosperity with combating climate change and other environmental challenges. GGGI’s role is to change this situation through practical help for countries in the developing world as they forge their own pathways to a better, more sustainable development model than was used in the past.”
At present, the GGGI has 18 members from the developed and developing world, including: the United Kingdom, Norway, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Denmark, Ethiopia, Paraguay, Qatar, Vietnam, Cambodia and the United Arab Emirates.