This notion is premised upon Guyana’s geopolitical importance and potential
Guyana’s Appeal Court seemed to have appreciated the need to resolve the myriad of controversies surrounding the results of the national and regional elections held on March 2, 2020, for which many commentators, diplomats and important stakeholders, including this columnist, have all amplified calls to get on with the recount.
Readers would recall that, in last week’s article, this columnist articulated the ramifications of the geopolitical developments in the region currently, which pose dire consequences for Guyana and far beyond the political impasse in Guyana. Moreover, it is noteworthy to mention that the President has called for a recount, the Opposition Leader has agreed, and the GECOM Chair is on record committing to a recount by way of legal binding. Therefore, the national recount ought to proceed without disruption. There is an entire country to run, progress to be made, businesses to prosper, developmental projects to be undertaken, and a pandemic to deal with; hence, it cannot be sufficiently emphasized how ridiculously painful this fiasco is: the extent and depth of the gravity and granularity in which developmental progress is being stymied by this political atrocity that has descended on this beautiful country and its people.
Having said that, this columnist today wishes to present the abstract of an academic conference paper that was submitted and accepted by an international academic journal, the “West East Institute International Academic Conferences on Business, Education and Social Sciences”. The paper is based on a case study on Guyana titled: “A case study of the economic and social development challenges facing Guyana in its transformation of becoming a geopolitical interest in South America and the Caribbean”.
This case study is specially designed to examine the critical factors affecting the economic and social development of Guyana. This country is largely described as a small developing economy in South America, despite being endowed with an abundance of natural resources, which include over eight billion barrels of recoverable crude discovered since 2015 onwards. The research methodology employed combines a qualitative model of research and analysis technique; specifically, a thematic synthesis was performed in which relevant secondary data were collected. An economic and financial analysis of quantitative datasets on various macroeconomic variables spanning a period of 25 years (1994-2019) was also conducted, inter alia, interpretation of the datasets.
Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America. It has a small population of less than one million people, per capita income of US$5,000 (2018), and GDP in nominal terms of US$3.9 billion. The author seeks to present a compelling case of whether Guyana can become transformative within the region viz-à-viz an enhanced framework that would foster deeper regional economic integration of South America and the Caribbean with the rest of the world. This notion is premised against the backdrop of Guyana’s arguably geopolitically potent location and its emerging petroleum industry, coupled with the increasing global interests in Guyana coming especially from the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, and many other countries across the world.
The main findings of the study with respect to the social and economic development challenges show that there are fundamentally four dynamic elements responsible for the under-development nature of Guyana.
These are: (1) there is a huge human capital deficit in terms of education and skills of the population, (2) physical infrastructure deficit, (3) high cost of energy, which is one of the highest in the western hemisphere, and (4) the most crucial determinant is the inherent features of the political economy, which is underpinned by ethnic division and politically motivated crime and violence, historically and to some degree in the current political environment. The paper analyzed the causation and drivers of these determinants, and concludes that with good political leadership and governance, Guyana can move from being an underdeveloped country to a ‘developed’ economy, and thus become a strategic, geopolitically important country; because, at the margin, western hemisphere oil supply is crucial, and because a Brazilian corridor to the sea is important. In these respects, it is contended that Guyana can play a pivotal role that fosters greater regional and continental integration of the Caribbean and South America respectively within the global economy.
