The MDGs and the Forest agenda
Last week’s column addressed the burning question: “Is the global community driving the domestic agenda for Guyana’s forests?” My response to that was in the affirmative. In the column, I went on to recount information provided in earlier columns in support of this view. That information stressed the policy influence of the Earth Summit, held in Rio 
de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. As I indicated there, this influence led directly to the pivotal roles played by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO); the United Nations Convention on Bio-diversity (UNCBD); the Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS); and, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), in framing the “Vision, Objectives and Goals of Guyana’s forest and land use policies”.
To complete the presentation, today’s column urges readers to recognize that those global efforts were framed under the general rubric of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 2000-2015. These MDGs expressed the ambitious global development framework, under which development policies and resources transfers from rich to poor countries were expected to place, in the drive to reduce poverty and hunger, and to