THE conversation about development is shifting as Guyana’s economy expands, with focus on new industries, infrastructure, investment, jobs and opportunities. But another measure of progress deserves equal attention: how effectively we protect the people doing the work.
Economic transformation inevitably changes the workplace. New industries introduce new technologies, equipment, processes and occupational risks. Existing sectors must expand and modernise to survive. More Guyanese are entering technical and industrial fields. We can no longer afford to view occupational safety and health as something that matters only after an incident occurs or simply as a regulatory requirement. It must become part of our culture.
The recently commissioned Occupational Safety and Health Centre of Excellence at the New Amsterdam Technical Institute is well positioned to support the continued growth of a culture that values safety and health. Established through the Greater Guyana Initiative (GGI), in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labour and Manpower Planning, the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training and LearnCorp International, the Centre will support delivery of the Caribbean Vocational Qualification Level 3 Diploma in Occupational Safety and Health. It combines classroom instruction with practical exposure to areas including personal protective equipment, gas detection, industrial hygiene, chemical safety, fall protection, lifting and rigging, confined-space procedures and emergency response.
It is the first facility of its kind in Guyana and the Caribbean dedicated to supporting the CVQ Level 3 Occupational Safety and Health programme, creating a strong foundation for Guyana to serve as a national and regional hub for developing workplace safety professionals.
That matters because a growing economy requires more than workers who can perform technical tasks. It requires workers, supervisors and employers who understand the risks associated with those tasks, recognise hazards early and know how to prevent an unsafe condition from becoming an injury or fatality.
The Centre also represents an important evolution in technical and vocational education. Training for increasingly sophisticated workplaces cannot be confined to classrooms and theory. Workers need opportunities to encounter equipment, practise procedures, make decisions and demonstrate competencies in controlled environments before entering workplaces where the consequences of an error can be far more serious.
But facilities and qualifications alone will not create safer workplaces. Guyana must also develop something much harder to build: a national safety culture, one that embraces prevention rather than reaction and recognises safety as a shared responsibility, not an afterthought.
A genuine safety culture exists when protecting people becomes instinctive, not something done only because an inspector is visiting or a regulation requires it. It is visible when workers feel empowered to identify hazards, when supervisors correct unsafe practices immediately, when employers invest in prevention rather than simply responding to accidents, and when everyone understands that productivity should never require unnecessary risk.
Encouragingly, Guyana’s wider occupational safety architecture is also evolving. The Ministry of Labour and Manpower Planning has reported more than 3,000 occupational safety and health inspections during the first five months of 2026, surpassing its annual target of 2,000 inspections. Government is also reviewing the country’s broader occupational safety and health legislation and workplace safety framework, with support from the International Labour Organization, while preparations continue for specific occupational safety and health regulations for the oil and gas sector. These developments point to a stronger national approach, not one limited to oil and gas.
The Ministry of Natural Resources has reinforced this broader principle, noting the need for sectors such as mining and forestry to advance alongside petroleum with equally strong expectations around safety, compliance and responsible operations. As Guyana diversifies, these expectations must support the thousands of Guyanese who earn their livelihoods across the natural resources sector and other growing industries.
As Guyana develops multiple sectors alongside petroleum, safety practices in modern industrial operations should raise expectations across the economy rather than create isolated pockets of excellence. Construction workers operating at height, miners working around heavy machinery, forestry workers, manufacturers, transportation workers and employees in other industrial settings all face different risks, but all require strong systems for hazard identification, training, supervision and prevention.
As Labour Minister Keoma Griffith has noted, a stronger national safety culture must respond to the changing nature of work across these sectors. The standard should increasingly become simple: if work carries risk, deliberately build harm prevention into how that work is planned and executed.
A worker in mining should expect a serious approach to safety. So should someone in forestry, construction, manufacturing or transportation. When these expectations are consistently applied, the strongest evidence of Guyana’s developing safety culture will not only be found inside workplaces.
A population trained to assess risks, follow procedures, use protective equipment, anticipate hazards and understand the consequences of unsafe behaviour can carry those principles into everyday life. The mindset that encourages someone to stop and assess a workplace hazard can also influence decisions on the road, around the home or when supervising children and family members.
That is how a workplace initiative can contribute to something much larger.
Through initiatives like the Occupational Safety and Health Centre of Excellence, stronger inspections, modernised regulation and continued investment in workforce competency, the country has an opportunity to embed safety alongside technical excellence as industries develop.
A stronger economy should not only create more opportunities to work. It should ensure that Guyanese can pursue those opportunities, build careers and return safely to their families at the end of every working day.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.
