-offer modern, tailored courses to regional partners

WITH defence diplomacy being considered as one of the most critical links to Guyana’s foreign policy and development strategy, President Dr. Irfaan Ali has called on stakeholders to expand programmes being offered here to cater to other regional partners.

The Head of State during his address to education and security stakeholders at an award ceremony at the University of Guyana (UG) on Wednesday, said as the government seeks to strengthen its defence diplomacy, further collaboration is being sought.

“We see defence diplomacy as an important aspect of the stability of economic prosperity and ensuring that there is alignment with our key partners, ensuring that there is that networking at every level, at the defence level, at the level of ambassadors, foreign affairs; at the level of head of state, but importantly at the defence level.”

The aim, he said, is to further ‘springboard’ the country’s defence programme, fostering more partnerships with its regional counterparts like Brazil.

Back in 2022, UG had launched its Master’s Degree in Strategic Development Studies. The programme was developed as a result of a collaboration between the university, government agencies— National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) and the Guyana Defence Force (GDF)—and the United States Government through the William J. Perry Center, among others.

“This is where we will have to have some strategic thinking; how do we now use the programme? Maybe we will have to now modernise some of it to deal with specific issues that countries are faced with. We will have to add a module on language so that they can actually go through this programme,” he said.

With this possible expansion, the president foresees the need to have interagency exchanges to build out the programme and expand its ‘footprint’.