There are indications of significant change in tackling challenges to democratic governance in Guyana by the APNU+AFC government, but there are also reasons for concern, according to a USAID-funded report which has warned that time is of the essence and urged constitutional reform.
The main challenge to democracy, human rights, and governance in Guyana is its legacy of political parties organised along ethnic lines, of single party dominance, and its centralized patron-clientelist system that contributed to weak, unaccountable, unresponsive, and ineffective government institutions, the report, Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) Assessment of Guyana, said. “The dysfunction in (Guyana’s) political system has led to a feeling of hopelessness among many Guyanese, high levels of emigration, and insecurity,” the report declared. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had contracted a DRG Assessment of Guyana which was intended to assess the political change and democratization in Guyana, consider the US Government’s operational and programmatic environment, and develop strategic and programmatic recommendations to address the core problem(s) DRG identified in the assessment. The final report was released in March.
