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President Ali announces US$30M STEM centre to boost health innovation in Guyana
…warns weak systems stifle progress
(Kaieteur News) – A US$30 million investment in a new science and technology education facility for children was announced by President Irfaan Ali yesterday at the opening of the 70th annual Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) Health Research Conference, as he warned that weak systems, not a lack of ideas, remain the biggest barrier to turning innovation into better health outcomes.
Ali, delivering the feature address at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown, said Guyana is partnering with ExxonMobil to build a STEM education centre aimed at nurturing scientific talent from an early age. He linked the initiative directly to one of the region’s most pressing constraints, which is limited human capital and the high cost of maintaining science infrastructure in schools.
“Never before has humanity possessed so many tools to improve health outcomes,” Ali told an audience of researchers, policymakers and health professionals. “The problem is no longer a lack of ideas; it is a shortage of systems that can absorb, govern, finance and scale those ideas fairly,” he expressed.
President Irfaan Ali addressing the opening of CARPHA yesterday. (Ministry of Health photo)
The three-day conference, being held under the theme, “Innovations in Health,” has drawn a record 500 participants, with 12 internationally recognised speakers, 35 exhibitors and representatives from more than 20 countries. Organisers said 211 research papers were submitted, with 196 accepted for presentation. The event will conclude with an awards ceremony recognising excellence in research, and it was announced that the 71st staging is set to be hosted by Grenada’s Ministry of Health.
Ali noted that among the most urgent challenges in the region is its inability to scale innovation due to weak institutional ecosystems. He argued that Caribbean countries are uniquely positioned to serve as testing grounds for new health technologies because of their diverse populations, but lack the regulatory frameworks, infrastructure and coordinated systems needed to support such pilots. “We live in a region where our entire population size can be a pilot,” he said. “But we do not have the ecosystem, the infrastructure, the legislation, the regulations to allow our societies to be pilots.”
Without those systems, he warned, promising initiatives stall after initial testing and fail to translate into widespread, lasting improvements. “We do not have a clear strategy of implementation,” Ali said, noting that many projects revert to “routine” once pilot phases end.
Beyond scaling, he outlined a series of interlocking challenges confronting global and regional health systems, including the digital divide, regulatory bottlenecks, inequality in research, unstable financing, shortages in skilled personnel, climate change, antimicrobial resistance and fragmented primary care.
He emphasised that regulatory reform could be accelerated with political will, proposing a unified legislative framework across the Caribbean to keep pace with rapid advances in healthcare technology. “Are we willing to do it?” he asked.
He encouraged that the conference produce recommendations aimed at closing systemic gaps and strengthening the region’s capacity to adopt and sustain innovation – an outcome he said is essential if the Caribbean is to become a leader rather than a bystander in global health advancement.
Among those in attendance were Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony; Dr. Carla Barnett, CARICOM Secretary General; Martin Seychell, Deputy Director-General of the European Commission; Rhonda Sealey-Thomas of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO); and Dr. Lisa Indar, Executive Director of CARPHA.
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