Guyana has asked the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) to fund the development and construction of three mini-hydropower systems, road links in the hinterland, and training for oil and gas, among other projects.
This was revealed by Minister of Finance Winston Jordan in his address at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Islamic Bank Group, in Marrakesh, Morocco, last week. According to a copy of his speech, which was made available by the ministry, Jordan said that Guyana will be looking towards its development partners, in-cluding the IsDB, to build on the country’s regional comparative advantage in natural resource endowment including pristine forests, abundant fresh water, large arable agricultural lands and a wide variety of flora, fauna and mineral resources.
“Our strategic geo-physical and geo-political location within Latin America and the Caribbean offers a convenient gateway for public and private sector partners to collaborate and invest in Guyana, to expand their market opportunities and access scarce resources,” he said. To realise this potential, Jordan said, it is imperative for Guyana to develop climate resilient infrastructure, and food and energy security; an empowered and skilled labour force; and a capacity for entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.
“Excellencies, in all of these areas I am pleased to say that the IsDB has commenced working with Guyana to develop an appropriate development agenda as well as a plan of action and implementation,” he said. To this end, Guyana has placed for consideration several investment initiatives with the IsDB including the development and construction of three mini-hydropower systems and road links in Guyana’s vast hinterland communities, he said.
Others include the construction of several potable water and sanitation systems, a reverse linkage programme in halal ecosystems, and a reverse linkage programme in technical and vocational training with emphasis on addressing the critical needs of the emerging oil and gas sector.
“In the pipeline are opportunities for a waqf (an Islamic endowment to be held in trust and used for a charitable or religious purpose) investment programme to support our elder care initiatives; highway construction to open thousands of hectares of agricultural land while linking communities and markets; and marine port development to improve shipping and competitiveness,” Jordan added.
He said that Guyana looks to the President of the IsDB to support the country’s ambitious programmes, as well as to the Directors to formulate the policies to support the work of the IsDB among its member countries. “There are thousands of years of experience and tested technologies that exist in this region, from which we hope to benefit,” he said, while adding that Guyana is open for business “and we invite you and the IsDB to partner with us in making our exciting development prospects a reality.”
Earlier, Jordan had recounted that Guyana became a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 1998 and the IsDB in 2016.
“Since then, the support Guyana has received from the IsDB has been unique for its approach to programme formulation and project approval,” he said. He noted that last year, three operations were approved for Guyana to the tune of US$20.8 million.
These include a grant of ID200,000 for the upgrade and modernisation of a geriatric facility (ID = Islamic Dinar, which is the unit of currency of the IsDB. One Islamic Dinar is worth one Special Drawing Right (SDR) of the Inter-national Monetary Fund comprising a basket of international currencies such as the US Dollar, the Euro, the Sterling Pound and the Japanese Yen.)
The two others were a US$20 million installment sale operation to expand and upgrade the electricity transmission and distribution system, thereby leading to the improvement in the quality and reliability of the energy supply received by customers; and a reverse linkage programme – funded by Malaysia (US$0.3 million), the IsDB (US$0.28 million) and Guyana (a matching amount) – to make the rice industry more resilient, productive and competitive.
“Additionally, in 2018, we received a programming mission to begin preparation for several new projects. These operations are an appropriate response to the current challenges faced by Guyana, which are rooted in insufficient national resources and a diminishing pool of multilateral and bilateral support to provide the social and economic infrastructure necessary for giving “the good life” to all Guyanese,” Jordan said.
The Finance Minister also noted that since the last Annual Meeting, some “inconvenient truths” of globalisation’s free trade agreements became more evident. “The developed economies have championed trade without attention to people; and trade arrangements have been extended into national borders, with the consequential reshaping of domestic regulations and the appropriation of indigenous knowledge for profit. Now, the world begins to reap the whirlwind of a global marketplace that bypasses distributional justice with disruptions in geopolitical stability and defaults on agreements to govern the global commons. We see fragmentation, instead of collaboration and unity, and the rise of a chauvinistic brand of nationalism,” he said.
Going forward, he said, it is clear that business as usual will not suffice. “We must applaud the vision of the President, who is steering the Islamic Bank Group on a path that recognises the importance of the environment, and to building partnerships and south-south relations towards the realisation of economies that are resilient, that champion trade with the awareness that people are central to all our policies, programmes and actions; and that address labour market failures by targeting job creation and global value chains,” Jordan said.
“These programmes and financial instruments of the IsDB will not deepen societal divisions nor undermine domestic social bargains in the way that implementing current WTO and banking rules seem to be doing. But, even as academic and political thought seems to target only trading arrangements for criticism, we have to recognise that technology and demands for highly skilled workers – with its attendant downside of the brain drain – are even greater disrupters,” he asserted.
Jordan said that ways have to be found for IsDB countries to leapfrog into the 21st century and beyond “with clear-sighted and even prescient recognition of the necessity of adjusting to emerging global imperatives and changes.” In this regard, he identified Brexit, financial sector and Basel II reforms and the trend towards derisking, which places international transactions, including remittances to small countries, at extreme risk while increasing the cost for correspondent banking services; and the withdrawal of large countries from the global systems and structures, such as the essential climate change pact and safeguarding the blue economy.
