Guyana’s Economic Development Places It In A Position To Accelerate Implementation Of Agenda 2030 – Senior Finance Minister Says

  • During the Sixth Meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development currently underway in Santiago, Chile, Senior Finance Minister, Dr Ashni Singh, said Guyana reaffirms its commitment to Agenda 2030, both in terms of the country’s national policy agenda and ‘our call to action by the international community’.
  • This 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a plan of action for people, the planet and prosperity. It seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom through 7 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets.
  • The Senior Finance Minister was part of the panel that addressed ‘Strategies to Advance Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the Caribbean’. He took the opportunity at the forum to highlight two particular strategies to advance the national and sub-regional agenda in a manner fully consistent with Agenda 2030.
  • “These most recent economic developments have placed Guyana in a position to accelerate the implementation of Agenda 2030, to which we are firmly committed. Indeed, even the most cursory examination of our successive national budgets in recent years will indicate very close alignment between national policy priorities and Agenda 2030,” the Minister posited.
  • Guyana is currently spearheading CARICOM’s Food Security Agenda ‘25 by 2025’, which seeks to reduce CARICOM’s food import Bill by 25 per cent by 2025. The country has also outlined its second-generation Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) as a successor to the first LCDS.
  • “We in Guyana are under no illusion of the magnitude of the task before us if Agenda 2030 is to be successfully implemented. Indeed, notwithstanding our relatively strong fiscal position, the successful implementation of Agenda 2030 will require a level of investment that exceeds the still limited fiscal resources available. The challenge of financing sustainable development is further compounded when our inherent vulnerability especially to climate change and other external shocks is taken into account,” the Senior Finance Minister explained.

(Source: Guyana Chronicle)