PRESIDENT, Dr Irfaan Ali is lined-up for several summit-level engagements later this year with Brazil, Dominican Republic (DR), Canada, China, Cuba, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE), United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America (USA), as Guyana continues to enhance international partnerships to solidify its position as a growing global leader.

The President noted the country’s leadership and vision “is no longer confined to our borders” and his government was “strategically positioning Guyana” to benefit from national development transformations through the new partnerships.

Discussions with Brazil will include “a very strong and robust plan for integration of this region,” as well as “some massive transformative projects” that “can also bring further tremendous opportunities” for the local private sector.

The Cuba visit will surround discussions on healthcare and Havana has also offered what the President described as “some very strategic ideas on building Guyana’s human-resource capacity for advancing health care and health services.”

Following a visit to Georgetown by Dominican Republic President, Luis Abinader, President Ali is also scheduled to visit Santo Domingo for bilateral conversations surrounding arrangements for “mutual advancements of the two countries’ private sectors, particularly as it relates to financial investments.”

Santo Domingo is also willing to finance local projects and work with Guyana to ensure its energy security.

The discussions with Qatar and the UAE will focus on Guyana’s development agenda and opportunities.

The President’s UK discussions will aim “to further strengthen the bilateral relationship, advance projects and build more collaboration,” between the two nations’ private sectors, with talks also scheduled with the European Union (EU) on “further advancing partnerships and finding ways to advance EU-Guyana private sector ties.”

In China, the President will discuss deepening already-great collaboration and more investment opportunities.

His next Washington visit will also “further advance collaboration on several transformative projects.”

The President also harbors high hopes that Canada could soon “aggressively get on board,” as Ottawa is also moving quickly to join other major nations “as a strong partner in Guyana’s transformative agenda.”

Meanwhile, Guyana has already secured the support of all 32 members of the Group of Latin America and Caribbean States (GRULAC) for its candidature for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations (UN) Security Council for the 2024-2025 term.

If successful, Guyana will be only the second Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member-state to sit on that august body so far in the 21st Century, after Saint Vincent and the Grenadines became the smallest country in the world to occupy that rare top UN seat.

The multi-island Caribbean state was officially elected as a non-permanent member of the council for two years, officially taking its seat on January 2, 2020 until December 31, 2021.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines also assumed the presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for one month, from November 1 to November 30, 2020.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ presidency of the Council addressed contemporary challenges of the day, including “Pandemics, Environmental Challenges, Climate Change and Its Security Consequences and The Nexus Between Development and Peace and Security.”

Guyana’s further strengthening of bilateral and multilateral ties later this year with the Arab world, the Caribbean and South America, China, the US and Canada, the UK and EU, after recently also solidifying ties with Africa and India, is proof-positive that this PPP-Civic administration is dead-serious about continuing the active rebuilding of Guyana’s overseas image, so badly sullied after decades of downhill descent.

President Ali says he’s convinced that “Guyanese will live in a much-different world by 2030” – and by all indications, the country is already feeling that difference.