Plans of Action for Regional Development

Jul 17, 2016 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

President David Granger

On July 10, 2015, on the occasion of the swearing in of newly elected chairpersons and their deputies to regional democratic councils following general and regional elections of that year, President David Granger charged each council to craft a Plan of Action for Regional Development (PARD) for their respective regions.
The President said, “I would like you to examine your regions and work out a plan…I call it the Plan of Action for Regional Development, and I would like to see all of you develop some sort of plan of action for regional development.”
Those plans were to take into account the natural and human resources of the regions, among all other relevant information. The councillors were expected to plan how those resources could be most effectively leveraged for the benefit of citizens resident in the various regions.
In the words of the President, “Every single region can be rich, no region is desert, no region is swamp land, and every region has resources, human resources, material and natural resources, and we must decide how those resources must be exploited in order to benefit our people.”
Further, pointing to the seriousness of the oath, the President told the officers that they are expected to administer those regions for the benefit of all the residents. President Granger added, “I want to see the regions developing in themselves and for themselves, producing a high standard of education, high standard of employment.”
So, what exactly is a PARD? A PARD is a written, well articulated, comprehensive document which lays out the strategic direction and process for the development of the economic, infrastructural, social and environmental future of the region with specific goals and timelines.
A PARD is about action. A PARD is about partnership between a local government organ (regional democratic council) and central government. A PARD is a social contract between government and the people of a region. And each region will have one.
Work has already started and progress has already been made. The Ministry of Communities and the Ministry of Finance, in collaboration with the Regional Democratic Council of Upper Demerara-Berbice (Region # 10) had embarked on and since completed a pilot project to craft a PARD for that region. The fact that the project was successfully completed proves that the concept is viable. The fact that the document lays out specific plans for the development of the region proves that the concept’s implementation is a necessary prerequisite to regional and national growth.
Given the strategic vision of the administration to help to make each region dynamos of development, the idea of PARDs naturally follows, since each region is culturally and geographically diverse, with varying natural and human resources.
As such, management of such diversity is impossible from the centre; development must be community-driven after consultation with the people. This belief, of course, is the foundation for the administration’s philosophy of decentralisation and devolution of decision-making power to which government is committed. The administration iterates the commitment to assisting regional councils with the crafting of their respective PARDs.
It is understood that the transition from the old ways of centralised power to the bright and promising future of citizen involvement in government, will not be easy. On the 5th August, 1980, then Minister of Development and Co-operatives, Mr. Hugh Desmond Hoyte delivered a State Paper to the National Assembly on the subject of reorganisation of the local government system.
In that paper he wrote, “Obviously, the transition from the old order to the new will not take place overnight or without problems. It is going to take time and requires patience. People will have to learn and understand the mechanics of the new system, and to accept and accommodate themselves to their new and enlarged power and responsibilities. The introduction of the new system therefore will have to be phased in a programmed and systematic way.”
The administration agrees with the late President Hoyte; the challenges will be great and the road will be rough. The administration subscribes to the view that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; in the words of President Granger, “Strong regions will result in a strong Guyana”

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