Guyana playing important role globally

Patrick I Gomes, Guyana’s Ambassador to Brussels, becomes the Secretary General (SG) of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) this month. Gomes was the clear winner for the job in November.

It was testimony to the high regard people have for Ambassador Gomes and for Guyana. Congratulations Ambassador!

Bayney Karran, Guyana’s Ambassador to the USA, is in the running to be appointed Deputy SG for the OAS in Washington. The fact that he is a serious candidate for this post is another concrete testimony to the high regard people have for Guyana’s representatives abroad.

George Talbot, Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN, and Geir Pedersen, Permanent Representative of Norway to the UN, were appointed by the UN SG as co-facilitators for the Inter-governmental Consultations on the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) to be held in July 2015 in Ethiopia.

Bharat Jagdeo, the former President of Guyana, was just elected to head the Commonwealth Secretariat Observer Team to the elections in Sri Lanka. Jagdeo himself has many international appointments that show the high regard people have for Guyana internationally.

He has served as a UN ambassador for Climate Change and is Chair of the Board for the Green Fund. He has chaired the IDB and World Bank Boards.

Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh also served as Chair of the IDB and CDB Boards. Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy served as President of WHO – maybe the only Caricom person to have ever done so – and as President of PAHO when he was Health Minister. Dr Ramsammy was also Chair of the Affordable Medicine for Malaria (AMFm) Board – the only person from the Americas to have done so.

These are only some of the achievements of Guyana at the international level. While the PPP/C Government has provided a foreign affairs policy framework and work at the international level that has gained acclaim, Guyana’s achievements at the global level are not new.

Under the PNC, Sir Shridath Ramphal served as SG of the Commonwealth and Dr  Mohammed Shahabbudin was a Member of the World Court. But since the 1990s, Guyana’s work on the global platform has gained greater international attention and respect.

Three important conferences are scheduled in 2015 and Guyana will play important roles at these conferences – roles beyond our size as a country and beyond our level of economic and social development. These include the FfD Consultations, the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on MDGs to be held in New York in September, and Agenda 21 to be held in Moscow in December.

The Ethiopia meeting will demonstrate how serious development partners, like the developed countries and the donor banks and agencies, such as the IMF, World Bank, IDB and CDB, etc are about accelerating development.

Jagdeo and Guyana’s representatives abroad have championed the cause of developing countries and have sought to hold developed countries accountable for the inequities that tenaciously persist in developing countries. Guyana’s representatives have been inspired and followed the example of Dr Cheddi Jagan calling for a New Global Human Order.

Developed countries have not kept their MDG 8 promise and have betrayed their 1994 Copenhagen commitment to contribute at least 0.7 per cent of their GDP toward international partnerships to end hunger and poverty.

Guyana’s contribution must focus on fairness for a new financial support architecture that does not transform from a global to an African platform.

The MDGs meeting will involve global accounting for the goals and targets established in 2000 with the 2015 deadline. In Guyana, poverty has been reduced, there are fewer hungry people, health and education have improved, and more people have access to water and housing.

But the world will see another development platform that will not be able to say we have achieved all of our targets. A new global development instrument, the Post 2015 Agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be agreed on. We must play a crucial role to include those sustainable development targets important to us and to Caricom.

The Agenda 21 meeting will be about climate change. Guyana has been bold in rebuking those countries most responsible for climate change and  must lead a strong team of developing countries to make our presence felt in Moscow.

The three meetings are the most important ones to be held in 2015 and represent the development agenda that the world will set for 2015 to 2030. Guyana cannot afford not to be present and not to be an important player. These meetings are about the New Global Human Order that Dr Jagan and Guyana have presented for global equity and fairness.

The PPP/C Government must establish the platform that Guyana will promote.

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