Through its flagship Global Gateway Initiative strategy, the European Union (EU) has added health as a main area of focus alongside forest protection, in its assistance to this country and hopes to see Guyana in the near future producing pharmaceuticals to meet its own and regional and global needs.
“It fits with the bigger picture, the bigger policy objective of the government to really boost its health sector… For us this is a very important development. We have agreed that next to the forest sector, which is so far the only focal sector of the EU in Guyana, we will add another sector and that is health sector,” Head of the EU Delegation to Guyana, Ambassador René van Nes told reporters on Thursday at a press conference.
“So from now on, the EU will not only work in forest but we will work in health. We will focus on pharmaceuticals, but of course we can probably do more, so of course we are talking to the Minister of Health and other government officials on what is the best way that we do this,” he added.
Last year, he had disclosed that the EU was helping to facilitate the possibility of Guyana, Barbados, and Rwanda, working together to engage in pharmaceutical production. van Nes pointed out that the EU had helped Rwanda set up its own pharmaceutical facility and if that can be mirrored in the Caribbean it would excellent.
According to the Ambassador, the idea was first mooted by Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley and President Irfaan Ali and they also initiated a discussion “where they said they wanted to look at producing pharmaceuticals in Barbados and Guyana.”
He said that currently, “We actually have people that are coming up and down. We have experts who already came to Guyana to look at possibilities.”
During COVID, developing countries faced major setbacks in accessing vaccines for their respective citizens because these were grabbed up by developed states.
“After COVID the realisation was very clear, that yes, you can help these countries by giving them the vaccines, but it’s even better to help them with setting up their own production facility so that they can make their own vaccines. That is what the EU has done in Rwanda,” he stated.
However, he pointed out that while many countries may want to be pharmaceutical producers, this requires stringent global regulations.
“The first thing if you want to make vaccines is to have a regulatory environment because you don’t want to buy
medicine that is produced in a country where it isn’t entirely clear how that whole regulation works”, he said.
“So any company that wants to invest in a country will ask for a regulatory environment. We will assist. We are already doing that; having that regulatory environment. And in the meantime, we are talking to the European private sector to make sure that is done in a way that they appreciate. The whole notion is, that Guyana can attract the EU private sector to start the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals here.”
Last year he had explained that the EU’s role was not of an investor or decision maker in demanding which countries assist or can guarantee private sector investment. “Of course, it is not the EU that is going to invest. What we want is to bring European [private sector] companies to Guyana to Barbados…” he explained, so that they can see for themselves if both countries had the regulatory and investment climate for pharmaceutical production.
It is why the EU will “first try and will not put all our eggs in this basket” and will periodically evaluate how the new initiative is working here.
“It is not that we are just going all in with all the chips on that and now it’s only the Global Gateway. It is a new track slowly developing alongside our traditional way of working. So we will do both and if we’re successful, then we will probably expand that and we may be more successful in some countries than in other countries,” he surmised.
Excited
He said that the EU is “really excited” that it has entered this sector and can contribute to that here in Guyana.
“What we see here is real potential in the sector and we think that we can do something together here… the EU and Guyana can work together in this way that we can add value to what is happening in the health sector”, he said.
And as he underscored the benefits of the Global Gateway Initiative, he said that Guyanese should get to understand what it means for the country and the holistic developmental benefits that can be accrued, since it teaches nations sustainability and to be self-sufficient in a number of integral areas.
Through its Global Gateway initiative, he had explained, the European Union is planning to inject larger amounts of cash into the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), of which Guyana could significantly benefit.
While there are a number of areas for Guyana, the major focus from the financing model will be on the forestry, education, and health sectors, alongside research, climate and energy.
“For Guyana we have agreed with the government on a few of those Global Gateway [initiatives],” he had explained.
“We have a big programme on the forest sector and it is all about helping to preserve the forest, but in doing that, recognising that you can only be successful if you create alternative livelihoods for people that work and live in the forest… can you provide these people alternative livelihoods so that they don’t have to depend on the timber industry. Can you reduce your deforestation by creating value-added? Don’t export logs, export furniture. You have a higher value-added while you use less trees,” he added.
He pointed to the clean water programme where the European Investment Bank and the Caribbean Development Bank are funding the construction or upgrade of seven water treatment facilities across Guyana and said that discussions are currently revolving around off-grid solar power supply for areas in the hinterlands.
As it pertains to opportunities, discussions on the new model of infrastructure project financing will be discussed as it relates to the Global Gateway initiative and van Nes explained the changes to the financing model.
“It is different. In the past we would say this is a project – be it a bridge, hospital, school – we are going to finance that… the Global Gateway is a different approach. This is an approach where we say we can… use our resources to leverage much larger investment projects and we do that with very big financial institutions like the European Investment Bank, like the IDB, like the Caribbean Development Bank.
“Can we bring European Investment Bank, the IDB, and the CDB…? Can we bring in those investment banks in the process? And a very crucial partner is the private sector. Can we work together with the PS [private sector] and these investment banks and our money, which is always grant money; these monies are always a gift and not a loan. Can we use it to leverage a much bigger investment?” he continued.
According to van Nes, this new approach would also entail the EU’s funding of feasibility studies on larger versions of identified projects, to encourage international investment banks and the private sector to inject their cash.
Reflecting on last year, he pointed to an investment delegation that had visited, some 24 companies from nine EU states, and said that another will come later this year. With Guyana leading Caricom’s food import reduction initiative, he said that agriculture will also be an area of focus for the EU in getting investors here as diversity was good.
Last year’s delegation had a representative from a large sheep farm in Ireland, as “this government wants to increase the number of sheep.”
