Information on the billions of dollars the government receives in aid from its eight international development partners has now been published on the website guyanapsu.org.gy, as the donors push for public awareness of development, transparency and access to information.
The initiative, a release from the Canadian Inter-national Development Agency (CIDA) said, builds on the January 2010 event hosted by the International Development Partners in Guyana (IDPG) where they sought to strengthen and expand their relationships with the broader civil society and other interested stakeholders.
It said too that the aim is to facilitate dialogue among government, donors and the public. The documents also indicate support given to CARICOM projects and other regional initiatives.
The eight development partners are: CIDA, UK Department for International Development (DFID), European Union (EU), Inter American Development Bank (IDB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), United Nations (UN); United States Agency for International Development (USAID); and the World Bank (WB).
According to the June 2011 IDP Completed Projects Report, since 2000, the Guyana government would have implemented over US$76M in projects funded by USAID, with over US$23M being pumped into the 5-year Guyana HIV/AIDS Reduction and Prevention (GHARP) project. The US$23,007,215 given in aid for this project supported the national HIV/AIDS response through training of health care providers to provide prevention of mother to child transmission services. Additionally, technical assistance was provided to civil society organisations to enhance the quality of prevention, care and support services. “A robust private sector partnership was established and support was provided to the Ministry of Health to strengthen the health care systems and enhance monitoring and evaluation,” it said.
The Guyana HIV/AIDS Civil Society Management Support Project also benefited from US$8.6M in aid while the Guyana Trade and Investment Support project received US$7.5M in support. The latter project is aimed at enhancing the private sector’s competitiveness for export development and increased participation of producers in non-traditional export markets.
Since 1995, DFID would have initiated and completed over £46M in projects here, with more than £12.7M of this amount being poured into improving secondary education in Linden and Berbice. The Guyana Education Access Project, which commenced in May 1997 and ended in October 2009, envisioned improving the educational systems in these two “disadvantaged areas” which could be replicated nationally. A further £11.5M of this amount was poured into the Guyana Water and Sanitation Project (GUYWASP). The project was aimed at producing sustainable and universal access to safe affordable water and ran from July 2000 to March 2009, the Report disclosed.
Meanwhile although Japan has become an important development partner for the government, the only amount specified in the Report was $867M yen to construct a water treatment plant at Queenstown, Corriverton in Region 6, as well as to rehabilitate wells install conduits and distribution lines. Other projects identified but without a cost attached are “Dispatch of an Expert on Asset Management Perfor-mance and Condition Assess-ment,” which is aimed at helping GWI strengthen its capacity to manage water supply facilities; and a “Special Seminar for Promoting Energy Efficiency and Conservation.” There was also grant assistance to the Grassroots Human Security Projects. The Japanese, according to the document, funded several training programmes focusing on Governmental Human Resource Management for Senior Officials, Crime Prevention, Prosthetic and Orthotic Technique, and Intellectual Disability in Community Activity. These projects were done in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and International Cooperation but no cost was attached.
The full listing of donor projects and programmes can be retrieved at: http://www. guyanapsu.org.gy/files/IDP%20Completed%20Projects20110601.pdf
