President David Granger sees Guyana as one of many small states needing robust systems and structures both domestically and regionally, to preserve lives and livelihoods as it battles the COVID-19 pandemic.
This statement formed part of caretaker President Granger’s remarks as he spoke yesterday at a high-level event on Financing for Development in the Era of Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) which was convened by the Prime Ministers of Canada and Jamaica and the Secretary General of the United Nations.
The President told the virtual gathering that Guyana – one of the smallest states on the continent of South America – borders countries which have a high incidence of COVID-19 and migrants from these countries enter Guyana in areas which then necessitates the provision of effective health services over long distances and to remote settlements. In addition, as a small developing state, the country faces many challenges which have been compounded by its need to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. He added, “Small states need structured and sturdy systems to save lives and support secure livelihoods.”According to Granger, “In the medium and long terms, we must build capacity to respond effectively and efficiently when faced with health crises which are predicted to occur more frequently in the future.”
With regard to the long term, the President spoke of the need to achieve food security by sustaining agriculture, manufacture and services so that when the economy opens, the public and private sectors will be capable of “rapid” production and progress.
In the short-term, however, he noted the nation’s obligation to respond to the “urgent, unavoidable and unanticipated” effects of the COVID-19 pandemic while reminding that the public health sector’s requirements are costly and necessary. He added that the expanded, all-of-economy response will overwhelm small economies in the absence of what he referred to as “concessional resource availability.”
In addition, Granger posited that given the multidimensional nature of the impact of COVID-19, “extraordinary financing must be directed to support small states,” and he recommended three ways to achieve this: responding immediately to the life-saving exigencies of the pandemic; developing holistic recovery plans and exit strategies; building capacity to establish permanent health structures to prepare for future international diseases such as seen over the last decade – Chikungunya, MERS, SARS and Zika.
