Development schema

While Guyana has pulled itself out of the grouping of “Least Developed Countries” over the past decade, we have to recognise that our gains need to be consolidated and augmented, so that we may enjoy an increasingly higher standard of living. Earlier this month, the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries was convened in Istanbul, and its findings should be of interest to our policymakers and the politicians vying to replace them in this election year.

The 8931 delegates, including 36 heads of state and government, 96 ministers and 66 presidents of international organisations, reviewed the results of the previous action plan conceived a decade ago and conceded that the development strategy for the LDC’s needed a “course correction”. The conference adopted the Istanbul Programme of Action (IPOA-2010-2021), the overarching goal of which is to overcome the structural challenges faced by the LDCs to eradicate poverty and move up in status.

 This is an insight that our presidential aspirants may do well on, and hopefully move beyond the hackneyed rhetoric and blame- game that have generally characterised the campaign up till now. As a country that moved from hundreds of years of colonialism directly into twenty-eight years of misguided economic adventurism, there are obviously significant inherited structural constraints that must be overcome. For example, the move to modernise the sugar industry so that greater mechanisation can reduce production costs will inevitably improve for the workers the abysmal social relations that were inherited from the past. It cannot be jettisoned.

The other five objectives within this broad goal are: to achieve sustained, equitable and inclusive economic growth; to build human capacities and foster social development; to reduce economic and natural vulnerabilities; to ensure enhanced financial resources, including larger Official Development Assistance (ODA) and their effective use; and to enhance good governance. It should be obvious that these goals have dominated our own LCDS, with the added fillip that the latter is located within the recognised fight against global climate change.

Local aspirants for the presidency should note that ODA is a recognised component in the development strategy for poor countries, which acknowledges the role (historically and into the present) the developed countries played in the structural underdevelopment of these countries. It is not a matter of running around with “begging bowls”. The eight principles underlying the IPOA development strategy are: country ownership and leadership of the development process; integrated and holistic approach to the process; genuine partnership between LDCs and their development partners, results orientation with effective monitoring and assessment; ensuring peace, security and human rights; equity at all levels in the development process; effective voice and representation of concerns of LDCs in the international economic system; and balanced role of state and market considerations.

The first and last principles deserve to be highlighted in our country at this time: there must be “country ownership and leadership of the development process” and a “balanced role of state and market considerations”. There has been much loose comment about the position taken by the government in the agreement with Norway to preserve our forests that we have to take control of the process. And the irony is that the Norway agreement is not ODA – it represents a quid pro quo: we sequester carbon in our forests by preserving our forests, and we get paid for our forbearance. Yet there are those that clamour for the Norwegians to have greater control.

On the principle of balancing the role of the state versus that of the market, it was made pellucid that, in the face of the neo- liberal juggernaut that had rolled over the globe during the last three decades, the state had a very crucial role to play in the economic arena. There was an emphatic rejection of market “fundamentalism” that has appeared to seize some of our local presidential aspirants. The goal of development, after all, is to benefit the people.