Finance Minister meets with UN Deputy Secretary-General

…reaffirms Govt’s commitment to advancing implementation of Agenda 2030

Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh met with United Nations Deputy Secretary-General (DSG) Amina J. Mohammed in Santiago, Chile on Wednesday.
During their discussion, Singh reiterated the country’s appreciation of the role the UN played in safeguarding democracy in 2020, and updated the DSG on the economic developments and prospects in Guyana.
A release from the Finance Ministry stated that Singh also reaffirmed Government’s commitment to advance implementation of Agenda 2030 aimed at achieving the SDGs, notwithstanding the challenging global economic context.
Singh is in Chile for the Sixth Meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, currently underway there. On Wednesday, during his presentation as part of the panel which addressed ‘Strategies to Advance Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the Caribbean’, the minister highlighted two pertinent strategies to advance the national and sub-regional agenda in a manner fully consistent with Agenda 2030, namely Caricom’s ‘25 by 2025’ food security strategy being spearheaded by Guyana, and Guyana’s second-generation Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which is a successor to the first LCDS.
“Guyana has demonstrated intellectual leadership and global advocacy in climate action. The Low Carbon Development Strategy sought to transition its development along a low carbon development trajectory, while simultaneously combatting climate change. In 2022, a major milestone was achieved for Guyana and forest countries in the world in the achievement of that vision when the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions Secretariat issued the world’s first jurisdiction-scale, market-ready carbon credits to Guyana. In total, almost 33.5 million credits were issued for the period 2016-2020, one of the biggest issuances of carbon anywhere in the world,” the release from the ministry stated.
A second major milestone, he noted, was also achieved in 2022 through the sale of a significant percentage of Guyana’s ART-TREES credits. Under the agreement, Hess Corporation will buy 2.5 million credits per year from 2016 to 2030, to a total of 37.5 million credits for a minimum payment of US$750 million, to be paid to Guyana between 2022 and 2032.
Guyana, he pointed out, also holds the portfolio of responsibility for agriculture, agricultural diversification and food security in Caricom, and is spearheading the region’s efforts to reduce its food import bill. The strategy outlines specific actions that are required by each state to achieve the 25 by 2025 goal of reducing Caricom’s food import bill by 25 percent by 2025.
Guyana is among the fastest growing economies in the world, with growth of 62.3 percent recorded last year, and medium-term average annual growth projected at 25 percent for the period 2023 to 2026. It is now considered as a premier investment destination, attractive for investment in the oil and gas sector, infrastructure and the requisite support services.
While meeting with the UN Deputy Secretary General on Wednesday, Dr. Singh used the opportunity to advocate for continued attention to the challenges being faced by the smallest and most vulnerable member states of the UN, particularly the small islands of the Caribbean.
Amina Mohamed first joined the United Nations in 2012, and led the process that resulted in global agreement around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals.