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QUICK FACTS: GUYANA Size: 214,970 square kilometers Population: 769,095 Average annual income: $1,130 USD Religions: Christian, 50 percent; Hindu; Muslim; others Life expectancy: 66 years Languages: English, Amerindian dialects, Creole, Hindi, Urdu Ethnic groups: East Indian, 50 percent; African origin; Amerindian; white; Chinese; and mixed origin (Source: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, World Factbook 2008; The World Bank 2006) |
Guyana
In 1992, the Carter Center's Global Development Initiative held its first Development Cooperation Forum, which explored how to enhance international trade, aid, agriculture, and other policies for development, especially for newly emerging democracies like Guyana. Building Hope Guyana is ethnically diverse and rich in natural resources, yet it has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the hemisphere. The Carter Center has worked in Guyana for more than a decade monitoring elections, strengthening democracy, and building consensus around development priorities within Guyana and between the country and its international donor partners to build hope for the future.
Waging Peace For much of the past decade, Guyana was a stable country that enjoyed high economic growth and declining poverty. This progress, though, was built upon weak democratic foundations, a fragile economic base, and underlying ethnic tensions between the Afro- and Indo-Guyanese communities. Unfortunately, these tensions have grown rather than abated. As a result, private investment has dried up, and emigration has accelerated. An interparty dialogue process between the major political parties broke down in March 2002 and again in 2003.
Concerned about these worrying trends, The Carter Center instituted a cross-programmatic approach to "waging peace" in the country, bringing its diverse skills in conflict resolution, democracy-building, and national development to bear on Guyana's challenges. In January 2002, the Center's field office began to monitor the political situation and explore how political differences could be resolved and how a broader national dialogue on deepening democracy and promoting national development could be launched. In June 2002, the Center sponsored a brainstorming workshop on conflict resolution with representatives of civil society and political parties. The workshop helped stimulate various civic and political initiatives for peace and further political dialogue. President Carter issued an open letter to Guyanese civic and political leaders to encourage them to work together for peace and reconciliation in July 2002. President Carter visited Guyana in July 2004 to assess the potential for deeper Carter Center involvement in promoting peacebuilding. He met with the president, leader of the opposition, diplomats, and a wide cross section of society and issued a statement on how Guyana's leaders could work together for peace and sound governance. Encouraging Sustainable Development and International Cooperation After the 1992 elections – the first free and fair elections in more than 28 years – the government of Guyana invited the Global Development Initiative (1993-2006) to assist in formulating a comprehensive vision and development strategy to gain the support of the international donor community. The process began in December 1992 with President Cheddi Jagan's participation in the initiative's first Development Cooperation Forum. The conference explored how to enhance international trade, aid, agriculture, and other policies for development for newly emerging democracies like Guyana. Following the forum, the government of Guyana and donors invited the initiative to facilitate preparation for a major donor conference specifically for Guyana under the auspices of the Caribbean Group for Cooperation in Economic Development, chaired by the World Bank. The conference brought together international financial institutions, bilateral donors, and government representatives. With the Center's assistance, the government presented a policy framework that led to an additional $320 million in aid from bilateral donors for the next three years. However, donors stated that a more comprehensive strategy would be needed for Guyana to attract further aid and investment. From 1995-1996, Guyana launched efforts to craft a comprehensive strategy for social and economic development. The Ministry of Finance, with assistance from the initiative, coordinated the first draft of the National Development Strategy. The draft NDS benefited from the views of more than 250 Guyanese from government, business, academia, trade unions, nongovernmental organizations, and the environmental movement who took part in some 20 working groups. Each group produced a strategy for its respective sector; these strategies were compiled and made available to the public for comment via the Internet and public seminars. As part of the initiative's wider efforts to model a new approach to development cooperation, Guyana's NDS process was reviewed in Atlanta at the Carter Center's second Development Cooperation Forum in 1996. Guyana's young democracy experienced a setback in 1997, when the opposition, in an environment of heightened ethnic tensions, rejected election results. People emphasized the need for processes to bring the country together and felt the National Development Strategy had a major role to play and urged the major parties to endorse it. Considerable feedback on the NDS had been generated through the Internet, public seminars, and reviews by international agencies and experts. With support from The Carter Center, the government invited a broad group of civic and business leaders to review the feedback and produce a revised version of the NDS. This group, known as the NDS Committee, successfully broadened the base of political support for the NDS by undertaking extensive consultations and meetings to produce the revised NDS. The revised NDS, a 10-year plan that not only addresses economic needs but also health, education, the environment, governance, and human rights, was finalized and presented to the president in 2000, who then presented it to the Parliament. Guyana's government used the NDS as the basis for its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, which is required by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and donors for international aid. Guyana's PRSP was approved by donors as the short-term framework for international cooperation in May 2002. Donors remain interested in seeing the NDS approved by Parliament as Guyana's long-term development framework. National elections took place again in March 2001, monitored by The Carter Center. While the NDS was not debated in Parliament before the elections, the NDS was resubmitted to the Parliament for debate and approval in August 2001. However, a dialogue process between the major political parties broke down in March 2002, and the opposition began a boycott of Parliament without progress on the NDS. National consensus on the NDS remains elusive and a goal of The Carter Center. Monitoring Elections In March 2001, The Carter Center sent a delegation of 44 from 10 countries to observe the presidential elections. President Carter, Rosalynn Carter, and former Barbados Prime Minister Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford led the delegation. The group concluded the election met international standards, noting that voting was peaceful and orderly with high turnout. Polling officials were found to be generally professional, well-organized, and impartial. While noting the importance of these elections, the Center stressed that such elections alone are not enough to solve either Guyana's problems of governance or the wounds of an ethnically divided society. The Guyanese also face the challenges of developing constitutional arrangements and electoral institutions that will foster political and ethnic reconciliation. The Center organized a small-scale observation team for the 2006 elections to demonstrate the Center's interest in and support for Guyana's democratization process and to assess the political and electoral environment in Guyana surrounding the elections in follow-up to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's visit to Guyana in August 2004. The team consisted of a field office director and three medium-term observers. The team met election officials, political party and civil society leaders, representatives of the international community, and other stakeholders and analyzed the campaign and electoral preparations in the weeks before the elections. Seven short-term observers joined the field team to assess election day and postelections processes. The Carter Center coordinated closely with other international election observation missions as well as domestic observation groups canvassing the country. Because of the small size and limited scope of its observation presence, the Carter Center team did not constitute a comprehensive observation mission and did not intend to draw conclusions or issue public judgments about the overall election process. Nonetheless, given its longstanding engagement in the country, the Center hopes to assist Guyana to use the elections and the postelection period as an opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to building more inclusive systems and practices of governance. The Carter Center's election observation activities are conducted in accordance with the "Declaration of Principles and Code of Conduct for International Election Observation," which was endorsed by more than 20 major election observation groups in October 2005 at a conference at the United Nations and establishes standards for professional, impartial, and effective observation. Consolidating Democracy In August 1999, the government of Guyana and the U. S. Agency for International Development entered into a five-year agreement for a democracy and governance program in Guyana. The Carter Center worked with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the International Foundation for Election Systems to improve the rule of law and legal regulation-making, increase capacity to resolve disputes in a timely manner, sustain institutional capacity to conduct free and fair elections, increase the levels of influence exerted by civil society, and strengthen local governance. Strengthening Civil Society The Center's Democracy Program helped Guyanese nongovernmental organizations to increase their advocacy, consensus-building, and analytical capacities to improve the status of women, youth, and Amerindians. The program also helped them to increase public debate and media attention on issues affecting these target groups. During fall 2001, the Center selected seven Guyanese civil society groups to receive training in strategic planning, results-based management, advocacy, project design, financial management, and proposal writing. The Center also worked with local Amerindian organizations to explore how civil society groups could remain informed about and participate in planned revisions of Guyana's Amerindian Act. Reinforcing Rule of Law The Center's Democracy Program has worked closely on judicial system reform in Guyana with the High Court, the chief justice, the Guyana Bar Association, and the Guyana Association of Women Lawyers. The Center has supported efforts to develop a code of conduct for the judiciary and create a national judicial conference series. The Center also supported establishment of a Criminal Law Review Committee in February 2002 with the mandate to examine existing laws, practices, and procedures for the criminal justice system and to make recommendations for its improvement and possible legal revisions. In addition, the Center has supported the revision of the civil rules of court. Other Center activities include the support of a magistrates conference and a judicial education series. Election Reports Final Report to the Guyana Elections Commission on the 2006 General and Regional Elections, Feb. 15, 2007 (PDF) With USAID funding, The Carter Center conducted a targeted observation for Guyana's Aug. 28, 2006, national elections to demonstrate the Center's interest in and support for Guyana's democratization process. Preliminary Statement on the 2006 Guyana Elections Carter Center commends the people of Guyana, the political parties, and the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) for what so far has been the most peaceful and orderly electoral process in recent history. Observing The 2001 Guyana Elections (PDF) The electoral process in Guyana has made significant progress since the Carter Center's first involvement in the early 1990s. Postelection Statement on Guyana Elections, March 21, 2001 On March 20, 2001, the day after the March 19 elections in Guyana, The Carter Center issued a preliminary statement about the electoral process. Postelection Statement on Guyana Elections, March 20, 2001 The Carter Center would like to commend the Guyanese people for their conduct and participation in yesterday's elections and present this preliminary statement on the electoral process. Final Report: Observing Guyana's Elections Process, 1990-1992 (PDF), March 15, 1993 The Guyanese election of Oct. 5, 1992 is of historic importance for Guyana and for all of Latin America and the Caribbean. For the first time in 28 years, all of the political parties of Guyana and the international observers agreed that the election was free and fair, and a peaceful transfer of power occurred. |
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