Transforming Guyana, Episode XII: Digitization and the emerging Guyanese Oil and Gas Economy

Media Advisory:

The Guyana Business Journal (GBJ) & Caribbean Policy Consortium host Episode XII of the  Webinar Series, Transforming Guyana, Episode XII: Digitization and the emerging Guyanese Oil and Gas Economy Wednesday, May 10, 2023.

Panelists:

Lance Hinds, Chief Executive, BrainStreet Group & Director, DreamSpace Foundation, Eldon Marks, Tech Entrepreneur & Innovator, Mike Singh,  Chair, Guyana ICT Tech & Innovation Council, Multidimensional Cybersecurity Expert, Erika Piirmets, Digital Transformation Adviser, e-Estonia

VIEW HERE:

Relevant Quotations:

David Lewis

  • “Guyana is poised…to really leverage the economic growth from the oil and gas boom in the technology sectors.”
  • “If we cannot discern and differentiate the political, social, cultural human rights issues, development issues between linkages with China versus linkages with the West. If we cannot assimilate the fact that the Caribbean is in the West, then we are going to be in serious trouble, and the cyber technology issue is just one of it.”

Erika Piirmets

  • “Digital services can offer minimizing the entry barrier to businesses. This has led Estonia to be a sort of Silicon Valley of Europe…As a side effect of digitalizing different services, thousands of years of working time is saved thanks to the interoperability of the backbone of our digital state.”
  • “More than 25 years, Estonia has been building the society to be digitally capable but all while building the technological infrastructure, we have been supporting form the government level all our user group through public and private courses that have now led to 80% of the population using some sort of digital service.”
  • “It’s not about turning everything digital and saying that we use the maximum technology that we can. So we don’t fetishize technology but we seek to improve people’s life quality.”

Lance Hinds

  • “There are core things to be done, of course. Certainly on the legislative side…there is a data protection bill that is out for comment which, when I look at other legislation in the Caribbean, this one is forward looking. It follows the GDPR model of the European Union in terms of structural intent, and I think it is a good one to comment on and encourage them to take to next stages.”
  • “This is where national planning really comes into effect in terms of making sure that all citizens buy in, all citizens understand that this is to their benefit…The whole concept of showing citizens in Guyana that this is about providing convenience and access…”

Eldon Marks

  • “One of the issues we’re still facing today is that we’re hemorrhaging a lot of valuable talent year after year…When it comes to finding talent within the local tech ecosystem to keep it driven that is, again, a shared issue among all of the various entities locally.”
  • “Much of the students that I’ve worked with over the years, and the fledgling entrepreneurs along the way, I find that the recurring theme is that they have big dreams but they rarely ever extend beyond the shores of Guyana. Exposure fixes that.”
  • “Change management is absolutely necessary. Vision and oversight, critical even more so…The ability to have individuals access an environment that permits them to learn technologies, learn the processes to deliver on those technologies, and then have opportunities to do so – absolutely critical.”
  • “Because we have multi-faceted problems [in Guyana], we need a multi-faceted steering body – a visioning body comprising of individuals who understand the big picture and are specialized in their own right with representation across the public sector, private sector, and civil society, to compliment an overarching vision for development.”

Mike Singh

  • “Why we need to have a cohesive industry body is so we can bring global best practices to the fore and these global best practices emanate from the collective world of experience and work that’s being done at the International Telecommunications Union.”
  • “Cybersecurity in Guyana is not something they’ve given enough attention to, either through a lack of exposure, a lack of adequate tools; it’s a work in progress. But in my opinion, it’s not being done fast enough.”
  • “My advice for the government of Guyana…you need to rip out every piece of Huawei gear and equipment…Let me be clear, they’re going to attack the oil and gas network here – not if, but when. If you’re transmitting data on networks that have Huawei equipment, you’re leaving yourself wide open for abuse and more than likely total shutdown.”

Moderators

Dr. David Lewis & Dr. Terrence Blackman.

Transforming Guyana, Episode XI: Empowering the Future

Transforming Guyana, Episode XI: Empowering the Future
Guyana’s Youth and the Oil & Gas Economy

The Guyana Business Journal (GBJ) & Caribbean Policy Consortium welcome you to Episode XI of the  Webinar Series, Transforming Guyana, Wednesday, April 12, 2023, at 10:30 AM EST.

Panelists: Karen Abrams, Founder STEM Guyana; Ronald Austin Jr., Columnist; Florence Alexi Larose, Consultant on Sustainable Development, Community Building, and Rural Development for Indigenous Peoples; and Elson Low, Economic and Youth Policy Advisor to the Leader of the Opposition, Guyana.

Essential Questions: How can we systemically and systematically empower young Guyanese, especially marginalized youth, to play a more active role in contributing to and benefitting from national development spurred by the emerging Oil and Gas economy?

How do we engage younger generations in the diaspora through the effective use of technology, social media, and innovative approaches to mentoring?

Moderators

Dr. David Lewis & Dr. Terrence Blackman.

Transforming Guyana Episode X: “Unlocking the Potential of Guyana’s Oil and Gas Economy

Unlocking the Potential of Guyana’s Oil and Gas Economy: Balancing Energy Development and Environmental Stewardship

Media Advisory

Please see the white paper here: Intersection of Energy_Environment in Guyana_Dr_Ulric_Trotz

Executive Summary: In 2015, significant oil and gas reserves were discovered in Guyana, transforming the country into a major fossil fuel producer. Before this discovery, Guyana, like other vulnerable developing countries in the Caribbean basin, had been advocating for international attention to their exposure to emerging climate risks and for the adoption of policies and provision of necessary support for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

These efforts led to a global agreement under the Paris Agreement in 2015 to limit the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5°C, among other objectives. In keeping with its obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Guyana developed a Low Carbon Development Strategy and a Climate Resilient Strategy and Action Plan that aim to achieve zero carbon status and climate resiliency in line with the Paris Agreement. However, the discovery of substantial oil and gas resources in Guyana now places the country in a seemingly contradictive position as both a current victim of climate change and an actor that exacerbates the problem.

To reconcile these roles, two factors need to be considered. Firstly, Guyana lacks the resources to build climate resiliency and transition to an affordable and sustainable energy system. Secondly, as the world transitions to net zero, Guyana has the opportunity to use its newfound wealth to implement both mitigation and adaptation strategies. The region can address regional energy and food security, internalize supply chains, and utilize the resources of Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago to facilitate progress in meeting their obligations under the Paris Agreement. Given the low carbon intensity of Guyana’s oil and gas resources and the feasibility of production compared to global producers, there is an opportunity for Guyana to emerge as a major supplier of fossil fuels during the global transition to net zero. However, Guyana must ensure that its production of oil and gas meets the highest available environmental standards and that the resources accruing are used to facilitate the transition to net zero and to build climate resilience.

Presenter

Ulric Trotz, (fmr) Science Adviser, Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, Belize

Speakers

Anthony Bryan, Co-Chair and Fellow, CPC & Professor and Senior Fellow, Institute of International Relations, UWI
Thomas Singh, Director of the GREEN Institute, & Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Economics, University of Guyana

Relevant Quotes

Relevant Quotations:

  • Dr. Ulric Trotz:
    • “The basic point I wanted to make was that dealing with this issue of being an oil and gas producer, while at the same time being vulnerable to climate change is the fact that we need to look at how the resources derived from oil and gas are utilized for the benefit of Guyanese people.”
  • “If you look at the implementation of the LCDS, there’s been a lot of activity on the zero-carbon aspirations with the gas-to-shore project, Amaila Falls, the renewable energy systems for the interior, et cetera, we’ve been addressing the mitigation aspect of the LCDS and it’s very interesting, whereas over the years in the international community we have been trumpeting adaptation, adaptation, adaptation.”
  • “Our position is we are in a world that is committed to climate change and we as small developing countries whose carbon footprint is very minimal, we need to build climate resilience.”
  • “Climate finance has been a major stumbling block in the global discussions, and very recently that it was more or less estimated that $100 billion is a drop in the ocean on what we really need to significantly address [the problem].”
  • Dr. Anthony Bryan:
    • “Environmentalist have also voiced concerns about Guyana joining the oil and gas industry while the world transitions away from fossil fuels. But I think this has been answered by Guyana’s president where he says, ‘it aims to use the oil windfall to diversify the economy, improve access to social services,  and promote investment in non-oil sectors including agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing’ and I think that is the position that the oil produces in the region.”
  • “Guyana is in a splendid position to really dictate a little bit about what the international global climate agenda should be. It has the resources, it has the influence, it has the attention of the world, so this is a historical opportunity to deliver both on climate mitigation and development goals.”
  • “You make progress at the pace necessary to deliver on global and development goals. It requires investment and I think developing countries such as ours, certainly Guyana, should ask developed countries for measures to rebuild trusts of confidence and international cooperations.”
  • Dr. Thomas Singh:
    • “We need in Guyana and probably in the Caribbean to learn to use incentives. We need to learn incentives on the whole, but when it comes to incentives, we sort of don’t understand the power of well-designed incentives. For example, natural gas-associated gas as a transition fuel, what if we decided to shorten the horizon for the extraction of this associated gas and put a limit, so it just doesn’t simply run with the oil.”
  • Dr. David Lewis:
    • “With this resource boom that Guyana has because of oil and gas, the question is how can Guyana use these rapidly and exponentially to develop the local, but also the foreign skills capability to handle this at the level of a world-class economy, that the energy sector is “imposing” on Guyana? Because it is a world-class best practice benchmark that’s taking place.”
  • “There is a pressing need that if we’re going to get this moving, the skills base needs to be advanced and I think the paper does a great contribution in terms of emphasizing the need for that institutional and human capacity, and emphasis is made, and it’s been discussed the role of the EPA and some of the government agencies. I would say that we also need to go beyond that, private sector capabilities and civil society capabilities because where we have seen examples of successfully managing the oil and gas resource growth, we also see the successful development of institutionality at the government, the private sector and at the civil society level.”

Moderators

David Lewis, Vice President, Manchester Trade Ltd. Inc. & Co-Chair, Caribbean Policy Consortium

DavidLewis@ManchesterTrade.com

Terrence Blackman, PhD, Founder & CEO, Guyana Business Journal

terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com

Latest Webinars

Transforming Guyana, Episode IX: The Agricultural Sector and the Oil & Gas economy

Media Advisory

Transforming Guyana, Episode IX: The Agricultural Sector and the Oil & Gas economy

Production of the Guyana Business Journal & Caribbean Policy Consortium.

SPEAKERS

  • Terrence Blackman Founder, Guyana Business Journal
  • David E. Lewis: VP, Manchester Trade Ltd. Inc. & Co-Chair, Caribbean Policy Consortium
  • Arlington Chesney: Former Regional Director, IICA and Executive Director at Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute
  • Joel Bhagwandin: Director, SphereX Professional Services | Commissioner, Public Procurement Commission, Guyana

KEY QUOTES

Arlington Chesney:

  • “With the proposed refinery and gas-to-shore project we have the ability to produce inputs whether it be fertilizers, pesticides, et cetera and better processing capacity because of cheaper electricity that would be provided.”
  • “There is a skill shortage, not a labor shortage, in addition to organizational shortage. Some of us are working with [universities] to see how they could hone their programs to be better able to meet the demands of the oil and gas sector for the region. You have to start putting in place that training capacity, improving the human capacity of the region to be able to provide the skills that are required.”
  • “It is to me a little bit unfair to say that Guyana is going to suffer the Dutch disease or the ‘resource curse’ because we have an oil and gas industry that is very organized, very organized in terms of human and financial capital. We have an agriculture sector that at best is disorganized and the traditional senior business people are not directly interested in our agriculture.”

Joel Bhagwandin:

  • “It is clearly evident of the fact that the government is making a concerted effort to increase food production, tapping into the regional food market, tying into regional food security, and truthfully speaking you can’t look at the agriculture sector in isolation because it’s interlinked to the other sectors. In order to increase food production or increase the true potential of the agriculture sector, you need to make the necessary investments in the infrastructure. The energy projects are   important because when talking about the value-add products, we need cheap energy to achieve that investment.”
  • “The government is making tangible investments in the sector; we’ve seen steady increase in the agriculture budget. In terms of leading the region, […] what happened during those days when we as a country was pushing this regional agenda, the rest of the region didn’t see the importance. Now however, against the backdrop of global external shocks and crises, all of this has amplified the need to revisit and escalate this objective of why regional food security and regional energy security are important—all of this goes hand-in-hand together.”

David E. Lewis:

“Guyana regardless of how big and how dominant the oil and gas sector is going to become, beyond the numbers and statistics, what’s going to happen is the rest of the economy needs to continue to live and we need to find ways to get that to leverage.”

Latest Webinars

Transforming Guyana, Episode VIII: Investment Security in Guyana

Transforming Guyana Episode VIII: Investment Attraction & Retention and the Importance of Protection, Regulations, and the Business Environment in Guyana

Media Advisory

View full webinar here

Speakers

Patricia Francis, Chairperson of Trade Facilitation Task Force & fmr Executive Director ITC, fmr President JAMPRO

KEY QUOTES:

  • “Certainly with respect to the regional artists, I think this is probably one of the most important of this opportunity of Guyana. I think Guyana’s very small population cannot actually grow in this on a global basis unless they somehow integrate into the region, and by that I don’t only mean CARICOM I also mean South America because as things begin to transform and move there is going to be need for the industry to come out and [speak] about can it live on 800,000 people or does it need to expand into other markets.”
  • “Any of the industries that you’re talking about […] the infrastructure to support those and the kind of ecosystem on which you build those industries is going to be critical and important, so once you start talking about producing for a global market you’ve got to think about how [you’re] going to move those goods or how you’re going to move those goods by sea or by air.”
  • “I think also again the local content act recognizes this to a large extent, but I think the government has certainty that this is going to be a moving target as they build capacity, both huge physical and also institutional in order to support industries as they move forward.”

Komal Samaroo, Executive Chairman of Demerara Distillers Limited

KEY QUOTES:

“Because we did not have a competitive environment, local production became a challenge, we could not compete against imports coming in, the cost of power, the shortage of skills, the lack of capital. I believe that with the situation where power cost is going to come down, infrastructure is being put in place and where there is more availability of capital, I think companies are looking to invest in areas that result in products that previously were imported can be available locally.”

Scott MacDonald, Caribbean Policy Consortium, and Chief Economist at Smith’s Research & Gradings

KEY QUOTES:

“Guyana is definitely on the map for foreign investment, it is attracting it within Latin America and we’re talking about a country with less than a million people. Guyana came in seventh in 2021 in terms of foreign investment. For a small country on the shoulder of South America, Guyana in many regards is punching above its weight.”

“It’s key to have awareness of what’s going on in the global economy, where you are, and in other words to put it mildly don’t get cocky Guyana. You’ve had a lot of success, you’ve moved ahead, you’re transforming the economy, you’re getting a socio-economic facelift but don’t get cocky about it because we live in a very competitive world.”

“As we’re doing the great energy shift globally, it’s critical Guyana moves to develop non-fossil fuels sectors, that goes from small medium-sized enterprises, offshore office centers, BPOs, the whole range of industry; but there’s no reason why Guyanese companies can’t issue forth from Guyana.”

“There’s a shopping list that goes with the vision thing for Guyana, that is the policy mix of improving education, development of human capital is critical, diversification from non-oil sectors, promotion of foreign direct invest but also promotion of local investment. We want to see a more competitive private sector in Guyana and I think that’s very critical.”

“Guyana’s transformation is definitely in motion, it has critical momentum, but the trick going forward is how do you keep the momentum, how do you keep those reforms going and how do you main the consensus in Guyanese society that this is the vision of where we want to go. I think the prospects are very good for Guyana, but there’s a lot of challenges that sit here.”

Andrew Schnitzer da Silva, CCO, Ascending Ltd., Workforce, Marine, Technical Training and Procurement

KEY QUOTES

  • “What I see happening in Guyana is in a way much different from what I saw happening in the beginning of the century in Angola and what I am experiencing right in Mozambique, there is willingness to transform and to create better ways to attract investors, but at the same time I feel that on the ground there is still a lack of understanding of the huge impact that this discovery can entail. There is still not a clear understanding of all the requirements and of all the efforts that need to be made in order to attract foreign investment.”
  • “There is some sense of fear that maybe the foreign investors are going to keep the whole ‘gold’ in the gold rush, so there is also still some weariness into how to accept and to how to collaborate with foreign investors coming. It is difficult to penetrate and I think that happens naturally.”
  • “Guyana does have a small population, does have a huge task ahead of itself and it could profit a lot from creating collaborative ways of investing in developing its infrastructure, in developing its resources, and in looking at digging up the ‘gold’ a lot quick than it will be able to do by wanting to do it by itself.”

Moderators

David Lewis, Vice President, Manchester Trade Ltd. Inc. & Co-Chair, Caribbean Policy Consortium

KEY QUOTES:


“So there’s that risk and that danger that all this focus on the oil and gas crowds out the reality of the need to do the basic day-to-day homework of modernizing the economy, streamlining bureaucratic and regulatory procedures, and really get beyond and overcome still what I would call ‘hangover’ of the 60s and 70s and that state-controlled period. The view that there’s nothing good about what has been the experience of Guyana with foreign investors. I think you know that is still a work in progress and to the degree that we can begin to focus more on some of these new success stories beyond oil and gas.”

Terrence Blackman, Founder, Guyana Business Journal

Transforming Guyana Episode VII, Guyana’s Indigenous peoples and the Emerging Oil & Gas Economy

The Guyana Business Journal (GBJ) & Caribbean Policy Consortium (CPC) present Episode Seven of their Webinar Series, Transforming Guyana.

DATE: Wednesday, December 14, 2022

TIME: 10:30 AM EST

  
In Episode Seven, Dr. Blackman, Dr. Lewis, and their guests explore Guyana’s emergence as a Petrostate and its implications for Guyana’s Indigenous Communities.


Please register and join us for an informative and insightful conversation.

REGISTER TODAY

Speakers

Valerie Garida Low, Former Minister within the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs
Sydney Allicock, Former Vice President, Guyana & Minister of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs
Florence Alexi Larose, Consultant |Sustainable Development| Community Building| Rural Development| Indigenous Peoples|
Trevon Baird, Lecturer, Department of Language and Cultural Studies, University of Guyana.

Charlene Wilkinson, Lecturer, Department of Language and Cultural Studies, University of Guyana.

Moderators

David Lewis,Vice President, Manchester Trade Ltd. Inc. & Fellow, Caribbean Policy Consortium
Terrence Blackman, Founder, Guyana Business Journal

Latest Webinars

US-Caribbean Relations: From Trade to Economic Partnership

REGISTER TODAY

This Wednesday, November 30, the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC), in collaboration with the Caribbean Policy Consortium(CPC), will host the webinar “US-Caribbean Relations: From Trade to Economic Partnership.” 

In this webinar, Ambassador Dr. Richard L. Bernal, OJ will present on the current status of US-Caribbean trade and prospects for the future with analysis from experts in the public and private sectors.

 Panelists will examine how the existential crisis of CARICOM requires a wholistic approach by the U.S. which integrates economic, security and environmental aspects in a self-reinforcing program. 

DATE: Wednesday, November 30, 2022 

TIME: 10:00-11:30 am EST  

Live webinar via Zoom  

Free and open to the public but registration is required.  

Registration: https://go.fiu.edu/Caribbean 

Presenter:

Ambassador Dr. Richard L. Bernal, OJ 

Professor of Practice, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the West Indies, Jamaica and Fellow, Caribbean Policy Consortium (CPC) 

Discussants: 

Andrea M. Ewart, Esq. 

Attorney and Founder, DevelopTradeLaw, LLC and Fellow, CPC 

Eric B. Wolff 

Regional Senior Commercial Officer, Caribbean Region, U.S. Commercial Service, US Embassy Santo Domingo 

Moderator:  

Dr. Anthony Pereira 

Director, LACC, Florida International University (FIU) 

REGISTER TODAY

With a special emphasis on the English-speaking Caribbean, the LACC/CPC Caribbean Policy Series includes four webinars for the 2022-2023 academic year with experts from the Greater Caribbean region, moderated by FIU faculty and CPC members, and a series of policy-oriented papers addressing economic, political, and strategic matters in the region that will be published electronically as part of the LACC Caribbean Working Paper Series. The LACC/CPC Caribbean Policy Series is part of LACC’s renewed commitment to expand programming related to the English-speaking Caribbean, a sub-region with phenomenal human capacities, strong democratic institutions and incredibly rich socio-cultural and environmental diversity. 

The Haitian Conundrum: Challenges and Opportunities

The University of the West Indies Institute of International Relations (IIR) in collaboration with the Caribbean Policy Consortium (CPC) and the H-Empire of the H-Net invite you to a webinar entitled “THE HAITIAN CONUNDRUM: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

DATE: Thursday, December 8, 2022

TIME: 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. AST

REGISTER

To register, click “Register Today ” in the attached flyer, or select Ctrl and click, or copy and paste the following link into your browser: https://sta-uwi-edu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_v_mi4TrbTK-98rSe27deOA

Moderator

Professor Ivelaw Griffith

Fellow, Caribbean Policy Consortium

Panelists

Dr. Sabine Manigat

Research and Lecturer in Political Science and Sociology,

Quisqueya University, Port au Prince, Haiti

Jacqueline Charles

Haitian Journalist, Miami Herald

Ambassador Colin Granderson

Former CARICOM Assistant Secretary General

Foreign and Community Relations

Dr. Georges Fauriol

Fellow, Caribbean Policy Consortium

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