PRESIDENT, Dr Irfaan Ali, and his Surinamese counterpart, President Chandrikapersad Santokhi, have announced the return of the Inter-Guiana Games.
The two Heads-of-State will wrap-up their four-day visit today where they met on a series of areas to strengthen bilateral agreements, including the area of sports.
The return of the Inter-Guiana Games, according to President Ali, is part of the Guyana and Suriname ‘People to People’ partnership, which he said is “bringing our people together, in a safe space that they can share and appreciate each other.”
President Ali, at a joint Press Conference with President Santokhi, yesterday said, “We are committed to re-energising the Inter-Guiana Games, bringing back the Inter-Guiana Games, bringing back the Inter-Guiana Games cultural forum/platform that was started, so we can have sports, culture and technological exchanges as part of forging greater unity, trust and understanding of our people.”

The Inter-Guiana Games sees Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana, having exchanges in football, volleyball, basketball, cycling, swimming and track and field. Lately, chess and badminton were added to the list of events.
Catering to student-athletes at the U-20 level, the Inter-Guiana Games, which was last held in 2017 in Suriname, first took place in 1967.
Former National Football player, ‘QT’ Donald was sent to Suriname by former President Forbes Burnham to work with the Surinamese on Guyana’s behalf to outline the games that was formed as a means of fostering bilateral relations, through sports between the two countries.
Football (basketball started in 1972) was the first sport that was played between Guyana and Suriname at the Inter-Guiana Games. The two countries battled for the Forbes Burnham/Johan Pengel Trophy. Johan Adolf Pengel, in 1967, served as Prime Minister of Suriname.