–Dr Singh emphasises as Guyana readies for Biodiversity Summit

AHEAD of the Global Biodiversity Alliance (GBA) Summit, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh has presented Guyana’s economy as proof that development and conservation can go together.
“Economic growth and environmental responsibility need not be conflicting objectives,” Dr. Singh said on Starting Point.
He said they can be complementary “if approached from the right policy posture,” and that Guyana has demonstrated this.
The Finance Minister related that successive PPP/C governments have devoted policy effort to two aims: laying the foundation for strong growth, and ensuring that growth is sustainable “in all of its dimensions,” including fiscal and debt sustainability and the environment.
“It’s impossible to speak of sustainability without taking into consideration factors such as climate,” he said.
Dr. Singh said the economy is projected to grow by almost 21% in 2026, with the non-oil economy growing about 10.2% to 10.3%.
He said this comes despite supply chain disruption, conflict-driven commodity volatility, and the prospect of El Niño. He also acknowledged domestic strains such as overheating pressures, imported inflation, and demand for skilled labour outstripping the supply of trained workers.
Dr Singh pointed to the International Monetary Fund’s 2026 Article 4 report, which includes an annex tracing Guyana’s path from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative to high-income status.
He said Guyana is the only participant in that initiative to reach high-income status, and that the result reflects sustained policy effort, including in the years before oil.
The link to biodiversity, he said, is that any long-term economic agenda “has to incorporate into it climate sustainability, biodiversity, nature, and the environment,” because human existence depends on them.
Just over a year after its official launch, the Guyana-led GBA has grown to more than 140 partners worldwide.
It now aims to agree on a global framework for valuing and protecting biodiversity.
It was reported that the Alliance’s creator and inaugural Chair, President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, said the second GBA conference and Financing Forum, on October 30 and 31 at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), will seek to align all stakeholders on a single approach.
The goal is to then integrate that approach into the United Nations (UN) and Conference of the Parties (COP) systems.
“This is really Guyana positioning itself to be a facilitator of a global action, of global thinking, and a global formula,” the president said on the Starting Point podcast on Friday.