Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali, who is currently heading a high-level delegation to the United States, yesterday engaged Vice President Kamala Harris on food and energy security and the latter raised “inclusive democracy” and “economic development” for all Guyanese
In a tweet, the US Vice President said “This afternoon I spoke by phone with President Ali of Guyana as part of our Administration’s ongoing effort to strengthen partnerships with Caribbean nations. We discussed our cooperation on food security, energy security, and other issues.”
A White House readout of Harris’s call with Ali also reported the Vice President as stating that she looked forward to promoting inclusive democracy and economic development for all Guyanese.
“The Vice President noted that she looked forward to continuing her collaboration with President Ali in promoting inclusive democracy, economic development, and security for all Guyanese, and underscored the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to strengthening U.S. partnerships with the Caribbean”, the readout said.
Her reference to inclusiveness and economic development for all gels with a persistent US line in the wake of Guyana’s burgeoning oil revenues.
It also mirrored the contents of a tweet on Tuesday by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on his engagement on Monday with Ali.
Blinken said “Guyana remains a key partner as we work to bolster food and energy security, promote shared prosperity and inclusive growth, strengthen transparency, and safeguard the environment”.
Asked about the engagement, later, President Ali said that it was a continuation of a conversation that started between President Joe Biden, Harris and himself during the recently concluded Summit of the Americas.
“The first thing that we need to do to advance any relationship is to have conversations, to understand each other, to share our perspectives and things may be different but unless we share it, we cannot understand the commonality and understand where each other is coming from. This conversation with the Vice President and President started at the Summit of the Americas it has advanced rapidly. So I will say that our conversation today was refreshing. It was, it was beneficial both to Guyana and the US and CARICOM. It confronted the big issues it was very frank and open, very respectful. It outlines the vision and supports the vision that I’ve been talking about,” the President related.
Ali has been in the United States along with Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hugh Todd and Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud. The visit stems from an invitation to meet with Secretary of State Blinken. The delegation has also met with leaders of Congress and the Senate, to discuss a range of issues.
Discussions centred on matters including climate change, security in Guyana and the rest of the region, food security, energy security and the debt crisis.
Ali said that this week in the US has been all about redefining the relationship with Washington and looking at the strategic outlook of Guyana and aligning that with the various actors here in the US. He added that the process has started and now the team is trying to harmonize what the two countries can offer.
“We are working also not only from a government to government and agency to agency perspective, we are looking to see how we can catalyze the private sector into this. Getting the private sector more interested so that they can build and be part of the opportunity, but importantly also how we link and build the relationship within the two private sectors so we have a transfer of knowledge, technology, the sharing of resources and so on,” the President related.
The White House readout said that the Vice President thanked Ali for his leadership and noted that addressing food insecurity is a global priority for the Biden-Harris Administration. The Vice President and President Ali also discussed the recent commitment of the United States to provide US$28 million for food security assistance to Caribbean nations and other ways the United States can support the Caribbean in this area.
“The Vice President and President Ali discussed the importance of a sustainable energy future. As part of that, they discussed the implementation of the U.S.-Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis 2030 (PACC 2030), which the Vice President launched in June to facilitate clean energy infrastructure development and strengthen climate resiliency in the Caribbean. The Vice President highlighted efforts to accelerate PACC 2030’s energy infrastructure development timeline by incorporating these lines of effort into the work of the U.S.-Caribbean short-term energy and finance committees”, the readout added.
