Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
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Guyana has not stalled economically

Thursday, July 27, 2006

by: Dr Randy Persaud

The construction of Guyana as a basket case is like a week-end sport for many. All sorts of doomsday scenarios have been offered about this little English-speaking country of some 750,000 people.

I recall a meeting last November where Dr. Roopnarine, Eric Phillips and Stanley Ming painted the country as a failing state. On a more regular basis Freddie Kissoon frames the country in the most drastic terms. His favorite depiction is semi-fascism.

More recently Khemraj Ramjattan has used the term ‘tyranny’. Clarence Ellis, David Hinds, Dennis Wiggins, and T. Yip have also spoken of an amalgam of depravations. Are these reasonable claims? Has Guyana really stalled?

In what follows, I will demonstrate that while these writers have pointed to important issues, they have all engaged in what I would like to call “Political Overstretch.” By this, I mean these writers have stretched the facts to achieve a known political outcome. Political Overstretch is like a balloon. It looks good on the outside, but sooner or later the balloon will burst, and not much will come out.

Let us, therefore, take a more objective look at what the development situation is in Guyana. A good place to begin this exercise is to compare Guyana with other countries at a similar stage of economic and political development. In doing this, I’ll rely on data from the Human Development Report. The Report is published annually by the UNDP.

The 2005 Human Development Index puts Guyana at 107. This means that of the 177 countries for which data are available, Guyana is better off than 76 countries. In the Medium Human Development category to which Guyana belongs, it has a higher quality of life than 38 countries.

We are better off than Viet Nam, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Egypt, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Ghana. The country also has a higher quality of life compared to Nigeria, Senegal, and Kenya, all of them countries with significant natural and human resources.

The closest Caribbean countries to Guyana are Jamaica (ranked 98) and Belize (ranked 91). Haiti, to which Guyana is wrongfully likened is struggling at 153. Interestingly, the difference between Guyana and Jamaica is not that great. Jamaica’s HDI is 0.753, while Guyana’s is 0.720. Haiti, by comparison is at an abysmal 0.475. The top score for all countries goes to Norway with 0.963, while the lowest goes to Niger which managed to muster only 0.281.

David Lewis of the Manchester Group in Washington D.C. recently compared Guyana to Haiti. He may be interested in these figures.

When the measures for the HDI are disaggregated, the minimal difference between Guyana and Jamaica is further revealed. Jamaica’s best category is Life Expectancy which stands at 70.8; Guyana is at 63.1. One factor that might explain some of this huge difference is that Jamaica has a lot more foreign nationals (North American and European) who have retired there. It also has a larger share of its population living in urban areas where health care is easier to deliver.

In the category of GDP per capita (PPP US$), Guyana ($4,230) actually is slightly ahead of Jamaica (($4,104). This is a ‘statistical difference’. The real story is that Jamaica has always had a higher per capita income than Guyana. Jamaica has a literacy rate of 87.6%; Guyana has a literacy rate of 96.5% (ages 15 and over for both countries). One figure not in this calculation is homicides. In 2005 Guyana had 125 homicides; Jamaica had 1641.

The average value for Medium Human Development countries is 0.718. Guyana is thus above the average. The comparable figure for Low Human Development countries is 0.486, a value that Guyana has gone far beyond. The World Human Development Index value is 0.741. Guyana is below that, but not by much.

Finally, in 1985 Jamaica’s HDI value stood at 0.719 and Guyana’s at 0.677. According to the latest data Jamaica is now at 0.738, and Guyana at 0.720. Here is my question to those who maintain that Guyana is going nowhere - which country do you think has a stronger record of improving the quality of life for all its citizens over the past twenty years?

It appears to this writer that Guyana still has a long way to go. It has, however, made a really good run of it so far. The country has a strong record of educational achievements going back to the 1960s. Successive governments have built on those early foundations. The economic opening that started with President Hoyte was important, and it appears that the successive administrations have made good use of that ‘apetura’. More to come soon. Hasta Entonces.

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