Guyana and Chile are eyeing areas of commonality where the two countries would focus on ways of dealing with special problems facing each other and to secure funding for programmes in this regard, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has said.
Bachelet, Chile’s first female president and President Jagdeo were engaged in a bilateral meeting, during Bachelet’s brief visit to Guyana for her participation in the 19th Rio Group Summit held at the Guyana International Conference centre at Liliendaal.
After her meeting with Jagdeo, Bachelet said the discussion was focused on social and human issues which plagued development in Latin America and the Caribbean and how the two could work together in dealing with the more pertinent ones which have direct consequences on the lives of the peoples of both countries.
“President Jagdeo raised social issues and he said he put special relevance on how we deal with problems of our people regarding poverty and hunger but specifically regarding health and education. So we looked at how we can get together in order to on one hand focus on the special problems and on the other hand look for funding for programmes in this regard,” President Bachelet said.
She said the discussion was held against the background of ensuring that both Caribbean and Latin American countries could advance development wise and more specifically with those countries who have marked asymmetries in mind.
She mentioned too a programme organized by her country which involved Caricom countries that had indicated an interest in having teachers receive special training in Spanish. As a result, over 28 teachers were given the opportunity to go to Chile.
“And there are many other areas of co-operation between Caricom and Chile, but this one was a pilot programme which lasted for six months,” Bachelet said.
She said there was another programme about to come on stream, which involved the Organisation of American States and Caricom and will result in a fund being established to propel economic productivity in Caricom countries. “But we will talk about it later and we will not announce it until we have everything ready,” the Chilean President said.
