Heritage Month 2021 reminds us that lcds is critical for Amerindian development

This week, Heritage Month 2021 comes to an end. Last week, the President and the Vice-President spoke in New York, including at the UN, about a resuscitated, re-energised Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS). As Heritage Month 2021 comes to an end, we are reminded that while the LCDS is of paramount importance to the overall development agenda of Guyana, it is especially critical for development in the Amerindian communities.
When the LCDS was recklessly discarded by the previous APNU/AFC (PNC) Government, critical development needs of Amerindian communities were also abandoned, setting back development in Amerindian communities by years. With a resuscitated LCDS, there are significant benefits for the Amerindian community in the coming years, with inputs of a revitalised LCDS leading to transformation in Amerindian communities.
Any discussion with Amerindian communities today, as it would have been in the past, would list demarcation and titling of Amerindian land as their number 1 priority. It is the reason why demarcation and titling of Amerindian land became a major initiative in the LCDS. When the LCDS was discarded in 2015, the titling of Amerindian lands was egregiously suspended in 2016 by the David Granger-led APNU/AFC Government. The reason given at the time was that the then Government wanted to implement a common policy of land titling, taking into consideration claims for land by all groups, including the demand for ancestral land by groups of Afro-Guyanese.
The APNU/AFC Government appointed a Lands Commission that spent several years hearing people’s claim, some of which were outlandish claims, such as one that claimed lands in West Berbice because those lands were lands belonging to his slave ancestor, as he claimed.
Basically, the then Government callously abandoned the aggressive Amerindian land titling that was being pursued as an LCDS programme. At the time, in 2015, 12 villages with extensions and 105 villages were given absolute grants to their land; 19 villages were issued certificates of title to their lands, and 86 villages were demarcated and issued certificates of title. Even with that aggressive programme between 2010 and 2015, many villages are still awaiting demarcation and titling.
Now, with a resuscitated LCDS, Amerindian leaders and communities can again breathe, knowing that the PPP Government would resume what it started in 2010, and complete what was promised to Amerindians since Independence. This was not an ordinary promise. This promise was enshrined in the Independence Declaration in 1966, in the Amerindian Act of 1976, and in the new Amerindian Act of 2006.
One of the signature initiatives in the original LCDS was the Amerindian Development Fund (ADF). Up to 2015, the ADF had funded 180 community and village development plans (CDPs), amounting to $912M. These CDPs created close to 1,700 LCDS jobs in Amerindian communities. These plans were developed by the communities themselves, and approved by the Village Councils. The LCDS initiative in the ADF essentially empowered the communities to develop their own plans, and the LCDS funded the plans. The ADF supported the development of both institutional capacity and enterprise in the Amerindian communities. As part of the ADF, the communities were empowered to develop value chains with the Private Sector. Government agencies such as the Small Business Bureau, the Guyana Livestock Development Authority, the Guyana Tourism Authority, the Guyana Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), New Guyana Marketing Corporation and many others supported the CDPs in the various communities. In 2016, the ADF was abruptly terminated by the David Granger-led APNU/AFC Government. But in the new LCDS that the President and Vice-President are leading presently, enterprise development creating jobs, livelihood and wealth in Amerindian communities are back on the front burner.
What made the discarding of the LCDS in 2015 disconcerting, and the reason Amerindian communities in Guyana are excited by the re-emergence of the LCDS now in 2021, is that the LCDS caters for the introduction and expansion of ICT and E-services in the hinterland, poor and remote communities. In the funding linked to the LCDS between 2010 and 2015 were projects to build the infrastructure and provide equipment, hardware, software and training to improve access to the internet and other E-services. By 2015, 90 VSATs, energised by 180 solar panels, were already providing internet connectivity to Amerindian and hinterland communities. These services were designed to improve health, education and business.
But progress in making this a reality was brutally cut short in 2015 when David Granger replaced the LCDS with the Green Development Strategy, which turned out to be a paint job, with Government buildings painted green and with citizens being measured in their loyalty to the PNC by the extent to which they painted their properties green.
The building of the infrastructure and capacity for E-services had come to a screeching halt in 2015. Six years later, the Irfaan Ali-led Government is bringing this development programme back to reality through the new LCDS. The PPP Government is planning to build 200 ICT hubs in the hinterland, each equipped with laptops, software, printers and tvs.
While the LCDS is a commonsense development strategy in the midst of global warming and climate change, it has special significance for Amerindians. It was reckless for APNU/AFC to discard the LCDS. It is commendable that the PPP has immediately resuscitated these transformative initiatives.