Introduction
Today’s column continues consideration of the three areas of Government spending that are supported in the Guyana Petroleum Road Map. In the past two columns, I have covered the first of these three areas, labelled as the “well underway priorities”. I had singled out one of these, the priority of the Natural Resources Fund (NRF) for special attention. Today’s column shifts that discussion and considers the “long-term priorities” for Government spending of future petroleum revenues.
I argue here that the long-term priorities are concretised in two of the country’s long- term development documents; namely, Guyana’s Green State Development Strategy 2040 (GSDS) and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustain-able Development Goals (UNSDGs).
In addressing this topic, I shall avoid going into details, except to stress these documents are widely acknowledged as guiding the Government of Guyana’s (GoG) long-term development strategy and priorities (including their vision, focus and strategic goals). The GoG actively promotes these documents as central to plans for the extended public spending of its expected petroleum revenues.
GGSDS Vision 2040
The first paragraph of the Executive Summary of the GSDS defines its Vision 2040 as: “An inclusive and prosperous Guyana that provides a good quality of life for all its citizens based on sound education and social protection, low-carbon and resilient development, providing new economic opportunities, justice and political empowerment” The central objective of this definition is described as “development that provides Guyanese with a good quality of life based on Guyana’s resource endowment”.
The contrast can be drawn with historical trends in Guyana’s political economy. These trends have revealed: 1) destructive geo-political and geo-strategic events; 2) widely fluctuating employment, income and living standards; and 3) degenerate socio-cultural conflicts combined with rampantly corrupt and authoritarian governance. In the face of these humungous negatives, the GSDS, against great odds, strove to develop from “a multi-layered, nationwide, stakeholder consultation process”.
A close evaluation of the GSDS and the UNSDGs reveal significant conceptual and analytical overlaps. Both take great pride in asserting that they are bottom-up, inclusive, and stakeholder driven documents. In truth, the GSDS developed from stakeholder consultations in all Regions of Guyana. Similarly, both documents were constructed on the premise of a long-term development vision and strove to go beyond the fashionable perspective of development policy combined with environmental protections; they encompass concerns like good governance, accountability, transparency and institutional capacitation.
GSDS Key Messages
The GSDS is structured around three key messages, eight development objectives and over 200 specific policy items. For purposes of brevity in expounding Guyana’s Petroleum Road Map, I shall focus on the 3 key messages and 8 development objectives in what follows.
Message 1: Manage Natural Resources Wealth
In a nutshell this first message refers to managing: 1) Guyana’s natural capital; 2) its ecosystem services; 3) its oil wealth; and 4) preserving its traditional sources of livelihoods in order to ensure sustainable development benefits for all present and future Guyanese by 2040.
Message 2: Support Economic Resilience
This second message stresses: 1) diversification of Guyana’s economic structure; 2) greater productivity of productive factors and systems; 3) higher levels of value-added; 4) resilient infrastructure; 5) reduced risks and lower business costs; and 6) reliable low-cost low carbon energy use over the long-term to 2040.
Message 3: Build Human Capital
Similarly, this third key message highlights the pivotal role of people in Guyana’s long-term sustainable development. It rightly focusses on: 1) sound health; 2) good education and skills development; 3) acceptable standards of living; and 4) social protection for all, especially the vulnerable. This message zeroes in on good inclusive governance, transparent and accountable institutions and citizen participation.
These three key messages converge to generate what the GSDS describes as a “diversified, resilient, low carbon people-centred development” for Guyana. This process is captured in the pursuit of the eight development objectives indicated below.
GGSDS Development Objectives
The eight development objectives of the GSDS are considered in this section. The first is listed as: Economics Restructuring and Diversification. This envisages a transformation of the economy from its narrow over-specialised primary production structure, heavily dependent on a few businesses for the generation of jobs, income, investment, state revenues, savings and foreign exchange.
The second listed objective is: Sustainable Management of National Resources. This seeks to ensure that Guyana’s natural capital is: 1) well researched, explored, and inventoried; 2) is prudently managed for present and future generations; and 3) commercialised at an environmentally-sustainable depletion rate.
The third listed objective is: Transition to Renewable and Clean Energy. Although on the cusp of windfall petroleum wealth, the GSDS fully supports a green path/agenda for Guyana and, therefore, a low carbon-based development path.
The fourth listed objective is: Resilient Infrastructure and Green Towns. Anyone familiar with Guyana is certain to be struck by its utterly deficient infrastructure, particularly physical, economic, transport and communications, including ICT. This has hindered the economic, social and political integration of the country. Green towns reinforce the development of towns as a geography- driven instrument for the balanced, multi-dimensional integration of Guyanese society.
The fifth listed objective is: Healthy, Educated and Socially Cohesive Population. This refers to the quality of the human capital stock. Clearly the healthier the population, the greater the level of training, and the better are its skills sets, the more productive and innovative the society becomes. Outlays on human capital are necessarily prioritised and the population sensitized to this imperative.
The sixth listed objective, Internationally Competitive Trade and Investment, stands out as the central reminder to us all that maintaining and improving Guyana’s international competitiveness, is the binding constraint on its growth, development, and possible transformation.
The seventh listed objective, Good Governance and Strong Institutions, is the one that best signifies that, by design, the GSDS goes beyond the blending of conventional environmental protections and traditional economic development policy prescriptions. This is demonstrated in its upfront focus on governance and institutional engineering and development. Here, notions of transparency, accountability and inclusiveness thrive.
Finally, the eight listed objective is: Sound Fiscal Policy. Fundamentally, this objective reconciles long-term development funding from oil wealth with short run macroeconomic and fiscal/budget management.
Conclusion
Next week I conclude discussion of the GoG’s long-term priorities for spending expected petroleum revenues. I focus on the UNSDGs.
