Reflections on Guyana’s recent UN presence

Oct 03, 2021 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Nobody feels good having to say aloud or reflect on the thought ‘if I did know’. Too many Guyanese both at home and in the diaspora are leaving themselves open to being faced at some time in the future with that kind of self-reproach – but this need not happen if due attention is paid to clearly visible current trends.
The last time I checked, on 30 September, 2021, the number of views of the address to the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly of Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, was significantly higher pro rata to population than all of the noteworthy countries I measured this against for comparison. There were 152,000 views of the speech of the President of the United States (pop. 333,416,000) making that number of views amount to 0.45% when measured against the population of the USA. In relation to the address of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (pop. 68,328,000) the numbers were 79,000 views and 0.11%. There were 4,500 views of the speech of Prime Minister Andrew Holness of sister Caricom country Jamaica (pop. 2,977,000) famed for its North Coast tourism, reggae music and athletics, giving a views measure of 0.15% against Jamaica’s population. Some 13,000 views were recorded against President Ali’s address, which measures at 1.64% against Guyana’s population of 791,000. I have used the Worldometer for all population measurements.
Those numbers indicate very clearly that interest in transitional Guyana is massive. Guyana is now either punching above her own weight or already moved up a weight division! People from all corners of the globe are aware of this and are either looking at Guyana’s possibilities for themselves or are already here to carve out a piece of the action. Guyanese are not quite so on-the-ball though. This could be attributed to our people having for generations heard about our country’s immense wealth in natural resources, yet have seen little benefit arise out of all the talk about this potential – but now it is on the cusp of happening for real. There will be jobs and business opportunities aplenty, also for non-Guyanese by default of necessity, and especially for persons who have a skill, qualifications or a good business idea backed up by true entrepreneurial spirit.
All of the speeches were good. After all, they were delivered by world leaders. Two addresses stood out for me however: the address of the President of Ghana and that of our own President. President Nana Akufo-Addo reflected that the key to the G20’s effectiveness is that it achieves representative coverage of the global population. The President of Ghana proposes the admission of Africa, to make it the G21, noting that the addition of just one seat and probably 10 minutes to discussions, would have the same galvanising effect within Africa as the EU’s participation in the G20 has within Europe – strengthening policy co-ordination and coherence across the 54 African economies which comprise 1.3 billion people. The President of Guyana gave special attention to the very topical subject of climate change.
Our President noted boldly and properly that the world’s worst emitters have not kept their word and mistrust now prevails in the countries that contribute the least to climate change. I note in this regard that a similar sentiment also emerged from the recent Planet SOS Youth Conference in Milan where the expressed consensus of the world’s youths is that, their trust in world leaders’ commitment to curb climate change is in tatters. All talk but no action! President Ali said that the worst emitters must make binding commitments at the upcoming Glasgow conference to scale up their contributions, and thus help small economies build up their resilience, as the burden in respect of addressing climate change is currently not carried equally. Our President reminded the Assembly that Guyana is a net carbon sink, despite being an oil producer, whilst we also continue to pursue the development of renewable sources of energy.
The Presidents of Ghana and Guyana had a meeting, whilst both were in Washington for the 76th Session. This is excellent on several fronts. It demonstrates a commendable maturity in the context of Guyana in that, the current Ghana-Guyana relationship was sparked by the Ghanaian President’s visit to Guyana during the term of President David Granger. This relationship will now be developed by Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo who will soon lead a delegation to Ghana for the purpose of enhancing co-operation between our countries in areas of mutual interest like oil and gas, capacity building and training and maybe about trade also, in light of the proposals made at the Africa/Caricom Summit held on September 7, this year, including the proposal to establish a weekly direct flight between an African country and one Caricom State.
The spotlight is on Guyana for many good reasons. All Guyanese must pay attention and be ready for the tsunami of economic activity that will hit us very soon as sure as night follows day. No-one feels good finding oneself in the ‘if I did know’ boat. It must surely feel even worse if one knows deep down that one really should’ve known. The numbers do not lie. Look no further than Guyana for an exciting future.

Yours truly,
Ronald Bostwick

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