UNDERLYING every aspect of Guyana’s development agenda is the common denominator of improving the socioeconomic condition of individual Guyanese; of empowering every Guyanese to live to their best potential; of designing the society so that everybody achieves his or her optimal possibility. Development is not just to showcase big shiny projects, or to increase national wealth, or to become a world-class country. Although it is all of those, more than anything, Guyana’s development is about its people; about raising the standard of living of the Guyanese nation through individual empowerment. Every morning, thousands upon thousands of public servants; nurses, teachers and people of all walks of life, farmers and labourers and construction workers and retail workers and soldiers and police and firemen and firewomen get busy with their daily activities to make this country hum and move forward. In Government, scores of State leaders and parliamentarians and officials dedicate their days to improving the lives of Guyanese. Ministers these days travel the length and breadth of the land to interact and discuss the country’s progress with local residents, practising dynamic servant-leadership in always evolving the methodology of how projects work to contribute to the welfare of every citizen.

The goal of it all, this complex operation of society, is the empowerment of the average Guyanese citizen to live the kind of life that each person deserves in this great land of Guyana. What an absolute joy for people to go about their busy days in this country, knowing that they elected in free and fair elections the kind of Government that works in their interest; that cares about their welfare, and that is matured and experienced enough to operate the State machinery with efficiency, professional conduct, and ethical consideration for the people who elected them to office.
Just like one vote counts as an important factor in who governs in a democracy, the big development agenda and good governance, and the overall system of Guyana’s operation, it is all happening for each and every Guyanese. In other words, national development is aimed and targeted at the individual person, rather than a faceless mass of society. Thus, when the leaders of Government look into the eyes of a person in face-to-face meetings with the Guyanese public in Essequibo, Lethem, Kwakwani, Port Kaituma, Leguan, and Wakenaam, they go back to the office with that person’s personality stamped on their consciousness, and make State decisions with that one Guyanese in the mind’s eye. This kind of consideration the previous Coalition Government lacked; this connection with the people of this country.

When Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo and Attorney-General Anil Nandlall and Prime Minister Mark Phillips could interact with journalists, and walk through the streets of villages and towns of this country and look citizens in the eye and smile with them and listen to their views and rub shoulders with ordinary souls; people feeling a buddy-buddy relationship of camaraderie and easy relations between the elite leadership and the ordinary citizenry, one knows that the nation is at a good place; that the average Guyanese is important, valuable, and uppermost in consideration of the development agenda. Development is for people; one person by one person. Democracy serves the individual who votes; that is how votes matter. When a nation sees a Government matured enough to intuitively know this; that the individual person is the most fundamental part of the process of what constitutes society, that nation is on a good, solid path.
In the housing agenda, and allocation of land to citizens, it is an individual enterprise; one Guyanese at a time. In making sure the GDP rises, it is for each Guyanese, like when the GDP exponentially jumped from US$300 per person to US$3000 per person, as noted by former Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, that is a direct individual impact on Guyanese – and indeed a world record in how fast such a big jump happened.

In considering why Guyana needs to achieve its legendary potential, and what is the common denominator of this massive development agenda of Government, it is important for the society to understand that uppermost in the minds of those who foster and set the development agenda is the individual person, each and every Guyanese citizen. The average citizen tends to feel that development is a bigger-than-life undertaking; that massive projects like the mega mall at Leonora tower above their heads. But it all works only for one purpose: To make life easier, better, and workable for the individual person. This is a perspective that inspires people; that motivates each person to get up and do their bit to make the society function well. When people know that Guyana’s forward movement is for their individual benefit, that not only their vote matters to the body politic, but that their human resource capital is crucial to the overall national welfare, it makes Guyanese feel important, worthy, valuable. And a society that fosters a citizenry who feels valuable, worthy and a necessary part of the grand scheme of things, is a nation that hums and buzzes with a motivated human resource base; people who tackle their lives with gusto, energy, and commitment to the cause of their own development.
One Guyanese by one Guyanese, like brick by brick in building a solid concrete house, the nation rises to its glory, to make real that musical line in the national anthem, ‘Oh Great Land of Guyana’.