The Green State Development Strategy Vision 2040, 20-year national development strategy for Guyana, was officially received by President of Guyana, Mr. David Granger, marking an important milestone for the country’s transition towards inclusive green economy. The Strategy provides a long-term vision and guidance for Guyana’s economic, social and environmental development placing sustainability at the heart of national development up to 2040. It will guide the national development policies for the next 20 years, under a vision of development that is inclusive and prosperous, 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.
At the official launch ceremony, UN Environment’s Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mr. Leo Heileman presented the Vision 2040 to the Head of State. Reflecting on this accomplishment, upon reception of the document, Mr. Granger said:
“The world is realizing almost by the day that climate change is a grim, relentless reality. There is no avoidance. Hardly a day passes that we do not see the adverse impact of climate change. It is great for us to be ahead of the game. We have challenges with our coastal zone management; we have cycles of El Nino, drought and flood in our hinterland; we have industries which are now starting to have an impact on air quality and water quality”.
In the context of building its greener and equitable future, Guyana joined PAGE in 2017 whose engagement in the country is, ever since, centered around supporting the elaboration of the GSDS Vision 2040. The new Vision 2040 actually builds on previous commitments to sustainable development, such as the Low Carbon Development and Climate Resilience Strategy Action Plan. The Strategy thus reflects the President’s vision of an inclusive and prosperous state providing a good quality of life for all its citizens and based on sound education, social protection, low-carbon and resilient development, providing new economic opportunities, justice and political empowerment. It promotes three key topics: management of natural resource wealth; support of economic resilience and building of human capital and institutional capacity.
SDGS brings in new modalities of financing the development through the Natural Resource Fund Act. The President explained that the revenues from oil and gas are to be invested in a wise manner to avoid the Dutch disease. He also pointed out the importance of grass-root education of the population, and especially youth on environmental consciousness to compliment the successful implementation of the strategy.
PAGE workstreams in Guyana reflect the three main areas from GSDS. Through the work of its partner agencies, PAGE supports the mainstreaming of sustainable development into national development strategies planning and macro-economic policies, works on sectoral and thematic policies to as well as operates capacity building effort. So far, PAGE has been supporting the multi-stakeholder consultation process and has been informing the political process on SDGS. Through its work on green industry and trade & green jobs assessment, PAGE is fostering the thematic reforms in line with the Vision 2040. In addition, PAGE has been building capacity for green economy decision making through trainings on modeling to enhance the national ownership of the strategy execution.
The implementation of the Vision 2040 strategy is set to begin in 2020 following the creation of an implementation team as Ms. Ndibi Schwiers, Director of the Department of Environment at Ministry of the Presidency stated.