There are unmistakable signs that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic administration has decided to throw a considerable measure of its ministerial weight behind what one might call its ‘economic diplomacy’ initiative that targets, simultaneously, a Guyanese diaspora that has evinced a fair measure of curiosity about such prospects as might arise from the developmental possibilities that inhere in the country’s status as a repository of world class oil & gas resources and on the other hand, the interests of expatriate foreign investors.
Recent visits abroad by Ministers of Government including President Irfaan Ali (his attendance at the recent UN General Assembly also reportedly included quite a few opportunities for bi-laterals) and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, have covered countries in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa and the United States. During these missions, there were reportedly, quite a few engagements with Guyanese in the diaspora.
One is hard-pressed to recall any previous period in the country’s post-independence history when so many members of Cabinet were, simultaneously dispatched on overseas assignments, and it is difficult not to see what transpired recently as perhaps the most definitive shift, up to this time, in the direction of what for some time had been a much touted economic diplomacy thrust.
It is of course worth mentioning that Vice President Jagdeo apart, the current clutch of ministers-turned-diplomats are, for the most part, new to the ‘game’ of economic diplomacy, so that they would presumably have been looking for support from a considerably denuded substantive Foreign Service, having been unable, up to this time, to properly effect the generational transitioning from one group of career diplomats to another.
Part of the reason for this has to do with the various ‘interventions’ which the Ministry has had to endure in recent years. Notably, only one of our recent Foreign Ministers can be said to have been a career diplomat. Our serving Foreign Minister, apart from having had no Foreign Service experience is not being afforded adequate opportunity to develop a ‘profile’ as the country’s ‘lead’ diplomat on account of his decided underexposure.
Then, of course, there is the profoundly Kafkaesque circumstance of the secretariat of the Minister of Foreign Affairs also (apparently) accommodating a functionary designated Foreign Secretary, a title evidently deliberately chosen to underline the post holder’s recognition in the political sphere and one which in itself, does no favours for the profile of the substantive Minister of Foreign Affairs.
On the surface, at least (and perhaps even deeper), one might argue that the emergence of the current surfeit of official overseas travel represents what one might call the flowering of economic diplomacy, the assignment having seemingly been handed, at least for the time being, to some members of Cabinet. The administration might argue, of course, that this was the best that could be done in circumstances where the Foreign Ministry is itself not adequately equipped at this time to shoulder that responsibility. Perhaps, a measure of comfort might be extracted from the fact that numbered amongst those involved in the economic diplomacy ‘charge’ is the country’s most experienced high profile politician, former President Jagdeo. There is no lack of experience in high-level negotiating there. The others, the government might argue, will learn on the job, hopefully quickly.
