–IDB President commends Guyana
IMPRESSED with Guyana’s rapid economic growth, President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Ilan Goldfajn, says “no other country recently has had such a prolonged period of growth.”
He made these remarks on Saturday at the XII Annual Consultation with Caribbean Governors of the IDB, which was held at the Guyana Marriott Hotel in Georgetown.
While giving Guyana high praise, Goldfajn stated that President, Dr Irfaan Ali has been vocal on a number of issues such as climate, energy and food security and its impact on the Caribbean region.
Placing focus on climate change, as this global phenomenon leaves crippling effects on the Caribbean region, the IDB President highlighted that environmental strategies such as Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) are important.
“The region has shaped the global conversation on climate change, and it’s helping to lead the way on promoting resilience,” he said.
Furthermore, Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance and the Public Service, Dr. Ashni Singh, underscored the importance of the IDB’s presence in Guyana and its role throughout the years as a long-standing developmental partner.
“We in Guyana consider it a great privilege to host these important consultations, not least because of the value we place on them as a long-standing provider of development support at scale. But also because of the IDB has demonstrated reliability and trustworthiness as a development partner over the years…,” Dr Singh said.
Also, under President Ali’s leadership, according to Dr Singh, the current era of unprecedented transformation has been fostered, owing to the foundation which has been laid over many years, which long predated the discovery of oil and gas.
“We remain today firmly focused on delivering improvement to the lives of all of our citizens in the shortest possible time, ensuring that we build resilience for medium and long term, including by diversifying our economic base and improving our competitiveness across all sectors and remaining at the forefront of both fiscal and environmental sustainability,” he remarked.
He added, “I also take the opportunity to encourage the bank to pursue innovative approaches towards mobilising and leveraging capital from both public and private sector operations, as we see collectively to build greater resilience in the Caribbean.”
He also highlighted the LCDS, which he said “provided a blueprint for Guyana to monetise the climate services provided by our standing forests.”
The world’s first TREES credits were notably awarded to Guyana by the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) in December 2022. It was the first time a nation had received carbon credits created especially for the voluntary and compliant carbon markets for effectively preventing the loss and degradation of forests, a procedure known as jurisdictional REDD+, which was a significant milestone.
Guyana received 33.47 million TREES credits from ART for the five-year period between 2016 and 2020 after the Board of Directors of ART approved the project and concluded an independent evaluation and verification process. This made it possible for Hess Corporation and the Guyana government to reach a historic deal in which the oil giants decided to buy one-third of all of Guyana’s credits—both issued and projected—up until 2030
