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he meeting brought together President Irfaan Ali and Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro in the face of Venezuela’s military buildup.

“We made international news, not for unrest, war of violence but for hosting of mature, proactive deliberations that created a template that others in the world would do well to follow,” Skerrit stated at the opening of the 46th Regular Meeting of CARICOM at the National Cultural Centre in Georgetown.

Skerrit was among those in St Vincent when the agreement was reached.

“I have full faith that the Caribbean spirit of unity and determination will continue to guide us,” Skerrit added.

The border between Guyana and Venezuela was settled by an arbitral tribunal on October 3, 1899, but on the even of Guyana’s independence in 1966, Venezuela repudiated the award which it had upheld for more than 60 years.

Decades of talks failed to settle the controversy and the United Nations Secretary General, in keeping with an agreement in Geneva which Venezuela signed on to, referred the matter to the International Court of Justice.

In provisional measures granted last December, the Court ruled that Guyana has governed and exercised sovereignty over the 83,000 square miles determined as its territory in 1899, and that should not change unless the court determines otherwise in its ultimate ruling.

Guyana is one of the founding members of CARICOM, establishing the body in 1973 with Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica.

CARICOM has grown to include 11 other countries, with the last being Haiti. There are also five associate member nations.

CARICOM has supported Guyana in the controversy with Venezuela.

At their Heads of Government meeting – the grouping’s highest decision making body – acknowledged the overwhelming decision of the Court of 6 April 2023 to reject Venezuela’s Preliminary Objection which sought to make the United Kingdom an indispensable party to the proceedings. They further noted the Court’s decision that, in keeping with the provisions of the 1966 Geneva Agreement, it had jurisdiction to adjudicate on the merits of Guyana’s claim regarding the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award that had determined the boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela.

The Heads of Government reiterated their “continued support for the judicial process and the security, maintenance and preservation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Guyana.”

neil@newsroom.gy

Guyana and Canada launched a transformative programme on Sunday afternoon to train 2,000 Guyanese to become full-stack developers – or persons who can build and maintain both the front-end and the back-end of a website -and ensure they have high-paying jobs afterwards.

Canada is putting CA$9.5 million into the initiative and Guyana is footing the rest of the bill. President Irfaan Ali said the full cost of the initiative is G$4 billion.

The front end (the parts of a website a user sees and interacts with) and the back end (the behind-the-scenes data storage and processing) require different skill sets. Graduates of the programme will be qualified to competently perform the duties of a full-stack developer, including PHP programming, Java Script programming, mobile application, python programming, website security and website front-end programming.

The programme is called One Guyana Digital and was launched at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre at Turkeyen, Georgetown. It will be run by the hugely successful Guyana Online Academy (GOAL) and the Toronto Metropolitan University. The Chief Executive Officer of One Guyana Digital is Mark Etwaroo, a Canada-based Guyanese, who worked with the university to develop the module for the programme.

He said tuition for the programme is valued at CA$10,000. Ahmed Hussen, Canada’s visiting Minister of International Development, hailed the initiative, recognising the goal to ensure the participation of women and indigenous peoples.

Ahmed Hussen, Canada’s Minister of International Development arrives at the Arthur Chung Conference and is greeted by Ministers Sonia Parag and Dr Ashni Singh. (Shatanand Anude/News Room photo)

President Ali said 60 per cent of those who have already signed up are women and 20 per cent are indigenous people. Through partnerships with companies and organisations employing full-stack developers, One Guyana Digital promises to provide an effective employment channel for graduates, with the lowest paying being CA$25,000, Etwaroo said.

But because Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be used to create codes, he said participants will be taught multiple skills and could qualify for high-paying jobs. President Ali said that while graduates would be able to work from home in their beds, the government intends to build “beautiful buildings” so that graduates can “go to work” because the culture of work cannot be replaced.

He said Guyana’s Local Content law will have to ensure that international companies operating in Guyana offer Guyanese opportunities for work to the graduates instead of outsourcing those jobs to people in other countries. Students will be given a laptop. They will be able to join LIVE classes with the Toronto Metropolitan University and they will also be able to learn offline.

President Dr Irfaan Ali arrives for the launch of One Guyana Digital at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre and is greeted by Dr Ashni Singh, Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance and Public Service. (Shatanand Anude/News Room photo)

What will graduates be able to do?

• Construct fully functional websites and mobile applications, from end-to-end, by using various languages and tools
• Front-end development and production: create and customize responsive web pages using a variety of languages (SQL, JavaScript) and full stack developers’ tools (Git, GitHub, Unix Shell)
• Back-end development and deployment: design a dynamic database/data store for retrieval of data using SQL and embed SQL statements in Python code that supports the middleware

The programme starts on May 24, 2024, and will last for eight months. The first cohort will consist of 500 students. Other cohorts will start classes on June 14 and September 14, 2024.

Dr Ashni Singh, Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance and Public Service, noted that while Guyanese are already engaged in telemarking and tele-transcription jobs, One Guyana Digital allows for a “completely new level” of training that will provide near-sourcing jobs.

Dr Singh said as Guyana transforms physically, the One Guyana Digital initiative represents the transformation that cannot be seen and forms part of creating new sectors that will bring in high-paying jobs for Guyanese.

President Ali praised Minister Hussen for his work in ensuring the initiative was realised, saying it was the fastest any international programme has moved from conceptualisation to realisation.

The President pointed to the initiative as a celebration of the “tremendous relationship” between Guyana and Canada and he singled out Hussen for “commitment, speed of action, his focus” and for sticking to his word when he promised him that “we can do it.”

historic CA $120 million sovereign loan agreement on Sunday, paving the way for the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security to better serve vulnerable groups locally.

The agreement was inked by Guyana’s Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh and Canada’s Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen, during a ceremony held at the Canadian High Commissioner’s Bel Air residence.

Hussen is visiting Guyana for the first time and will be participating in the 46th Regional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

Guyana is the first country in the Western hemisphere to benefit from the sovereign loan programme which provides loans on concessional terms to eligible countries, tailored to their needs and priorities.

And this loan, which equates to about GY$18 billion, will be used to improve social protection under the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security in the areas of digital transformation, old age pension, gender-based violence, persons living with disabilities and trafficking in persons.

In his remarks, Minister Hussen said the loan is tailored towards the needs of Guyana and will focus on mutual priorities and interest of both countries.

Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh (right) and Canada’s Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen (left) signed the CAD $120M sovereign loan agreement (Photo: News Room/February 25, 2024)

“It’s about protecting the most vulnerable populations. It’s about making sure that as we grow our economies, we promote gender empowerment, and we fight gender based violence. It’s about empowering people with disabilities and enabling this to participate fully in the economy and in the society of Guyana.

“Our retirees deserve a life of dignity, of respect, after working so hard,” Hussen outlined.

The loan is not a standalone agreement; Hussen said it signals the “next level of collaboration” between Guyana and Canada.

Canadian High Commissioner Mark Berman, in his remarks, said the agreement is just the “tip of the iceberg.”

“Today’s ceremony is symbolic of the partnership between Canada and Guyana and it highlights the loan agreement that supports Guyana’s efforts towards strengthening social services for its citizens, in particular the most vulnerable.

“It is one that involves a significant amount of hard work, long hours, significant collaboration and compromise by all teams from the Government of Canada, the Government of Guyana and the Inter-American Development Bank,” the Canadian High Commissioner said.

Guyana’s Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh said the signing represents yet another instalment in the longstanding and special relationship that exists between the two countries.

“Guyana is particularly proud of the fact that we are the third country in the world to have concluded a sovereign loan programme with Canada,” he said.

And as Guyana goes through a period of rapid economic growth and transformation, Dr Singh noted that the country remains “ever mindful” of the need to support vulnerable groups.

In this regard, Dr Singh said the sovereign loan programme which intermediates through the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), makes a “substantial” contribution.

vishani@newsroom.gy

The Dominican Republic believes that Caribbean countries must cooperate more with each other and the Spanish-speaking nation is still interested in joining the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), according to its Ambassador to Guyana, Ernesto Torres- Pereyra.

Torres-Pereyra was accredited as Ambassador to Guyana in 2023. That accreditation came as the Guyana/ DR relationship took off.

In just about a year’s time, Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali and the DR’s President Luis Abinader exchanged State visits with sizable government and private sector delegations. Chambers of Commerce have been established in both countries and many public and private sector deals are in the works.

Ambassador Torres-Pereyra said the Abinader-led government is deliberately focused on partnerships with Guyana and the wider Caribbean region, as part of efforts to guarantee that the DR and other countries in the region prosper.

With a seemingly sound bilateral relationship with Guyana, the DR still has an interest in being part of CARICOM.

“The decision that our President and our government has shared actually concerning CARICOM is that we want to become even closer and this government has been coherent and consistent in showing and expressing the intention of becoming as close as possible.

“If it was up to us, I think we would’ve been a member a long, long time ago,” Ambassador Torres-Pereyra said in a News Room Insider interview that will be aired on Sunday night.

CARICOM is a 15-member bloc of countries in the Caribbean. There are also five associate members. At least twice before – in the late 1980s and in 2013 – the DR requested to join CARICOM but discussions were suspended both times.

At last year’s closing press conference of the 45th Heads of Government Conference in Port of Spain, CARICOM Chairman and Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit said Martinique and Curaçao were set to become new members of the bloc.

He also noted that there were no formal discussions at the time for the DR and Cuba to join CARICOM.

“…But we believe in time to come they may very well become members of CARICOM,” Skerrit, however, noted.

Guyana currently holds the Chairmanship of CARICOM and from Sunday to Wednesday, the bloc’s 46th Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government will be hosted in Guyana.

The Government of Canada made similar statements last year when Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali met his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. That meeting was brokered following rising tensions between the two sides after Venezuela pursued a referendum that involved Guyana’s Essequibo region.

The border controversy between Guyana and Essequibo is decades-old. The boundary, as internationally-recognised, was settled in 1899 through an Arbitral Award. It was accepted by Venezuela and Guyana (then British Guiana) until the 1960s as Guyana approached its independence.

A political mechanism known as the 1966 Geneva Agreement was set up to resolve the controversy but after decades of talks failed, the United Nations Secretary General referred the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is the UN’s principal judicial organ. Guyana hopes the Court will provide a final, binding judgement that reaffirms the borders and that the Essequibo region is its own.