Dear Editor,
I recall a statement made some years ago by an African leader who lamented the fact that in Africa there is underdevelopment with consultancies whereas in Europe there is development without consultancies. It is time, he quipped, for there to be ‘a consultancy on consultancies.’
There is I believe a considerable amount of truth in this observation. Millions of dollars are being spent every year on consultancies from which hardly anything useful emanates.
There are scores of consultancy reports that are gathering dust in almost every government ministry or department. Several of these have only archival value with very few of the numerous recommendations acted upon. One major problematic is the lack of implementation capacity. It might be useful to have a study done on how many of the recommendations contained in several of the consultancy reports were actually acted upon. The findings of such a study could be revealing.
Guyana over the years has had several consultancies done at both at the national and sectoral levels. Among these were the National Development Strategy and the Low Carbon Development Strategy.
We now have the Green State Development Strategy: Vision 2040 which was recently presented to President David Granger by the UN Environment Programme Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. One hopes that this Report will not suffer the same fate as the other Reports due to poor implementation capacity. Further, it is unclear whether the Strategy has benefitted sufficiently from stakeholders inputs across the full spectrum of the Guyanese society to allow for long term sustainability and continuity given the current unpredictable political environment.The emergence of oil and gas will change the development trajectory of the country which will require not only a new development framework but a new vision as well. Such a framework, for it to be effective, must draw on the inputs of all stakeholders including the political opposition, the private sector, organized labour and the rest of civil society.
Yours faithfully,
Hydar Ally
