GUYANA and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have long been making serious contributions to development of a new and better world order in which people will have food, shelter, education and all the opportunities equally available on all continents.

Back in the early 1970s, Guyana contributed significantly to consolidation of the presence of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries (better known as the Non-Aligned Movement) in this part of the world, at a time when its foreign policy, under the likes of the late Rashleigh Jackson and later Carl Greenidge, was outright progressive and identified with the fight against Apartheid and for the Freedom of Nelson Mandela — and free-and-fair elections in South Africa based on ‘One Man, One Vote.’

Guyana also hosted a Non-Aligned Summit that saw erection of the landmark monument on Main Street, Georgetown, featuring the original founding leaders of the movement and led the sporting boycott of South Africa as called for by the Commonwealth in the 1980s.

From 1992 to present, Guyana’s foreign policy also gained a prominent place on the international stage, thanks to the thoughts of the late President, Dr Cheddi Jagan and the related positions taken and policies adopted while he was alive by then Foreign Affairs Minister Clement Rohee and his successor Carolyn Rodrigues, right up to current External Affairs Minister, Hugh Todd.

The New Global Human Order, proposed by Dr Jagan while in office between 1992 and 1996, was eventually adopted (although a full decade after he died) in 2007 by the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

As noted in an April 7, 2010 article by Hyder Ally for the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre, titled New Global Human Order – Grassroots Democracy: ‘It is to the credit of Dr Jagan and the diplomatic efforts of the Foreign Affairs Ministry that the resolution received co-sponsorship of some 74 countries, including China and India, two of the most populous countries of the world.’ The resolution had also received co-sponsorship from neighbouring Suriname, Brazil and Venezuela, in addition to CARICOM.

Ally also notes: ‘The crux of Dr Jagan’s New Global Human Order is that there is enough food and resources in the world to feed every man, woman and child. The problem, essentially, has to do with the distribution of such resources which are heavily skewed in favour of the rich.

‘In addition to the uneven distribution of resources, there is also the question of valuable resources being spent on weapons of mass destruction, which if mobilised for human development could end hunger, death and ignorance in the world at large…’

Dr Jagan died in 1997 and the UN subsequently adopted a series of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ‘Poverty Eradication’ gave way to Poverty Reduction, old conventions governing everything from the Law of the Sea to Human Rights were given new life, as were Rights of Children and Women, Youth and Civil Society.

But the main problems continue to confront human beings the world over, worse now than ever in many instances, as progress in addressing them at global levels has been too slow.
Africa and Asia, Arab nations, Latin America and the Caribbean can reach back and look ahead and create new mechanisms to pursue a new and more just world order.

As things stand worldwide today, with the same old problems only multiplied and manifested in new and different ways alongside new ones, President Jagan’s proposals for A New Global Human Order and others like that for A New World Information and Communication Order, are certainly worth revisiting.