IN today’s interdependent world order, nothing matters more for good governance than for leaders to keep abreast of new information and knowledge, with objective application of strategic decisions that stem therefrom, to the task of national progress. New thinking, research, and global agendas are moving with such rapid pace that local leadership must keep up, or be left behind the 21st century world’s accelerated advance. Good governance results when a country engages its leadership cadre from a pool of efficient, competent, professional men and women from among its ranks; people who know what it means to always upgrade the information at their fingertips. The world is a place of such rapid flow of new information that it takes keenly thinking leaders to make modern societies work well. This is why, for example, engaging Dr Ashni Singh, a brilliant mind, in charge of the nation’s financial coffers, is such a positive move.
Bad governance happens when leadership is lackadaisical, prone to egotistic personalities, and subject to inferior minds. In today’s globalised world, good governance demands leadership of immense mental fortitude, leaders who absorb knowledge and information of the wider world, and are able to exercise critical thinking in assessing fast-flowing information for application to the local scenario, and who can adapt their thinking with ease, and full self-confidence.

For example, the five years of the previous Coalition Government saw unbelievable failure to exercise good governance and, by the end, the leaders had squandered every single goodwill they had accumulated that had propelled them to government in 2015. They damaged their reputation not only with a wide swath of their previous supporters, but with the world community, the local diplomatic corp, the media, and professional organisations like the private sector bodies and even the bar association. Guyanese could look back as recently as a year ago to see the terrible impact of bad governance, which stemmed from a leadership that refused to realise that the world is a place of information resources. The Coalition governed with wanton disregard for efficient information flow, even refusing to host regular media conferences as a staple of the governance process.

If leaders refuse to spend the time absorbing new information of how the 21st century world is unfolding, and if they are unable to implement local application, and if they believe just the title of leader is enough to push society forward, the result would be a decimated administration, as happened with the Coalition.
Guyana would do well to implement a national think tank structure to analyse things like these; like the advent and failure of the Coalition, to prevent such things from hampering socio-economic progress ever again. Even, maybe, a national professional conversation, including even academic papers, of what went wrong with the People’s National Congress (PNC) in its 28 years of governance, which saw Guyana reduced to tatters. These kinds of audit of the nation’s history would be invaluable research and analysis, lending important lessons to the cause of securing the future upward trajectory of the society. Indeed, the major countries of the world all exercise this kind of hindsight to gain insight and foresight into what mistakes not to repeat. The United States is resplendent for such thought-leadership, with keen intellectual analysis of the era of every President, and even now an introspection of the Trump presidency is underway.

Obviously, the University of Guyana is the place for such probing of the way Guyana evolves as a world class nation, but in the professional media landscape, and within government itself, the society would benefit from good governance out of this analysis of information, and application to the local playing field.
This idea of engaging Guyanese national leaders who demonstrate efficiency and competency and professionalism in how they tackle the task of leadership, in how they recognise that information is the fundamental currency of today, this is what determines the level of progress for Guyana. Thankfully, the nation sees in the current government a deep respect for thought-leadership, and for men and women who are the best in the country. Cabinet must be a wonderful room to sit in, with these minds tossing ideas and thoughts around. In people like Ambassador to the United Nations, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana employs its best minds to this task of accelerating socio-economic progress, locally, and on the world stage.

For Guyana to establish this structural foundation of information to be the determining factor for policies, programmes and projects, rather than for personal preferences of powerful figures to determine national actions, as was the case with the Coalition, which gave a lucrative contract for a pharmaceutical bond, for example, to its financial supporter in a blatant display of cronyism, it is key for the country to implement a free-flowing digital culture of love for credible information. The Internet is where information happens, albeit there must be a way for credible information to be guided to citizens. Excellent leaders make use of the Internet to connect with important global organisations to keep in the loop of where the global village is heading. Good governance today demands leaders who love gathering credible information with an eye to local application.

Like the rest of the world today, Guyana faces an uphill battle to weed out information that stems from innuendos, emotive irrationality, and unprofessional bias – as is happening even in some media houses, and to cultivate a citizenry and a leadership cadre that understand the value of real information.
Life today happens, around the world and in this country, in data, in analysis and research and information gathering. And nothing contributes more to good governance, to a full-functioning democratic culture, and to fairness and justice and equity and sustainability, than for the country to nurture its leadership team from people who show a knack for lifelong learning and humble acknowledgement that new information is always necessary.