148. The President of Guyana: The Fastest Growing Economy in the World (Irfaan Ali)

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0:19Welcome to The Rest Is Politics Leading, and I'm absolutely delighted, sadly not with Rory, but with Irfan Ali, who is the president of Guyana. In recent years, the country with the fastest growing economy in the world, thanks in large part to recent discoveries of oil. 2020, growth 43.5%, 2021, 20.1%, 2022, 62.3%, 2023, 37.2%. So a country that in 2015 was the second poorest in the entire hemisphere, second after Haiti, now on track to have the highest GDP per capita in Latin America and the Caribbean by 2030. So that's quite a story. As to where it is, let me tell you, Guiana is up at the top end of Latin America.

1:09It's bordered to the west by Venezuela, which has its own claims, hotly disputed on large parts of Guiana. It's got a very close ally to the south, that's Brazil and Suriname to the east. But Guiana is proudly part of the Anglophone Caribbean. English is the main language. That's a legacy in part of colonial days, which ended in 1966. And I'm pleased to say that cricket is the national sport. There's another very big part to the story that we're going to talk about, and that is what's worth protecting, because Guiana is 85 % rainforest. And this is a country not much smaller than the UK. but with a population of 800 ,000, 1 million Guyanese approximately living abroad.

1:52And if we, the UK, had similar forest cover, only London, the southeast and the east of England would actually remain unwooded. I guess one of the big things we want to talk about is how you balance boom boom growth with sustainability. So, President Ali, thank you very, very much for joining me. And what we like to do in these interviews is just start a little bit with you telling us about you and the start of your life and your parents and your childhood and what that was like. First of all, thank you for having me. You know, my life is no different from any other ordinary Guyanese life. I still consider myself a very ordinary Guyanese with the great responsibility of leading this beautiful nation.

2:36But let me first of all apologize for the voice. my voice may not be that pleasing this morning because we are on the campaign trail and you know you know how campaigns are yeah they have a way of dealing with your throat you're sounding good to me you sound you're sounding you're almost Barry White in there I'm getting I'm getting a Barry White vibe maybe a bit of Bob Marley uh base on it you know yeah yeah yeah sounds good So let me say that, you know, yes, so growing up was like any other normal Guyanese working class family. I come from a family of public service. My parents were both teachers.

3:18Well, they are still both teachers because although they have retired, they continue to teach in the communities and help children all over the place. So I came from that service oriented family structure. Of course, a lot of my relatives, too, were involved in farming. I, myself, made sure that I had my experience in farming. Growing up in those days was very much different from what it is today. I always say to the young people today that it is not that they are better or we are better than those before us. It is just that we have better opportunity today than they had. and perhaps if they had the same opportunity, they would have been excelling just like any other young person.

4:04So in those days, for example, the average age of home ownership was in your mid-50s. Today, the average age of home ownership is in the mid-20s. Not in Britain, it's not. Here in Guyana. Let me make sure I say that I'm speaking in the context of Guyana throughout this podcast. So in those days also, So, you know, we had major difficulties. The country was in a period of dictatorship. So you grew up in an environment where you saw every single one who was older than you, who was above 18 years old, were deeply involved in this struggle of freeing the country. And in doing so, it became a very difficult situation for those persons because the state would come very hard against those persons who resisted or tried to champion this democracy and this freedom.

5:02So although colonization ended, we have a historical context in this country that is very beautiful to explore, beautiful from the perspective of what is happening in the global political landscape today. So in 1950, for example, when the movement, the Political Affairs Committee was started before, and that the purpose was to advance the cause of independence and then for self-governance. But what took place was that the unification of the people was divided by external forces. So even in the 50s, you had the situation in the region where the US and the UK believed that many of the countries were going into the direction of Cuba.

5:52And as a result of that, they used the structure of the population. And all of this is now released in different classified documents. So they used the structure of the population, which was based on an ethnic mix. You know, we are a land of six different people. And it separated the population based on this ethnic makeup of the country. And that led, of course, to many difficulties dividing the country along race lines to ensure that the philosophy of communism at that time did not infiltrate. infiltrate and to ensure that the UK and the US had enough power, enough power to maintain the existing status quo.

6:40Let me just jump in there. I want to ask you about something that relates to that. And that's your sense of your relationship with the UK. I had a very long chat over the weekend with Jane Miller, who you will know very well, our High Commissioner, the UK High Commissioner, Tugiana, who was doing what good diplomats do. She was telling me about all the good things that you're doing together. I just wondered, how deep is the scar that is left by something like slavery in a culture like yours? So, you know, this is a very sensitive topic for different people. There is no doubt that there's a deep scar in every society where slavery existed.

7:22But recently I said the ancestors who fought slavery and fought for freedom did not for one moment fought for the freedom only of the slaves. They fought for the freedom of a system. They fought for a systemic freedom. And sometimes we lose that bigger picture. So although this car is deep, I believe that the message behind that struggle for freedom is one for human dignity, is one for human advancement, is one for the forward movement of society. And it is in that context that I believe that society has graduated to a place where we do not forget the struggles. We do not forget the deep wounds of slavery, the indignity of slavery.

8:17But we use this moment in our history to move forward. And that is the conversation that reparation in its entirety must conceive. Do you think it's the word reparation that makes that difficult? Maybe. And that is something we should examine because the fact is, this is not a conversation about compensation because there is no compensation for the indignity of slavery. But what the conversation should be is a development pack. How do we come together and work out a development pack? Maybe a development strategy for society's deep scars and wounds as a result of slavery. And what constitutes that development pack?

9:01How do we help to advance on issues of mental health, education gap, health gap? And now, of course, you would know, Alistair, that if we don't address these issues in this age of digitization and AI, these countries are going to be left far worse off or far behind if you're not able to address that gap. So the issue here is as a consequence of the impact of slavery on our societies and our economy, the mental health, because there is no assessment. And I always use one indicator. If you look at a society that is developed like the UK and you look at your growing costs for mental health and just using that one parameter and looking at the impact on mental health from slavery, generational in nature, then it gives you an understanding of the type of investment that is needed.

9:57On the human capital side, on the development side. So I think that if we can structure this conversation, and I had similar conversations with King Charles, who I believe has been doing an extremely good job at reaching out, at finding ways in which he himself can change the narrative. He himself can be involved in this. But how do we give him enough space? How do we give the system enough space to develop a comprehensive strategy on this? You sound like you regret getting rid of the British monarch as head of state. What's going on here? No, no, not at all. We fought very hard for independence.

10:37But I have a lot of regards for King Charles. You know, he has been one of our champions on the environment. He has been the greatest champion on forest. Let me be very clear on this. You know, we can debate many things, but King Charles is the one who brought global attention on tropical forests. He spent a lot of his time convincing the global system on the importance of tropical forests. Our forest, for example, stores 19.5 gigatons of carbon. We have kept the forest standing, the biodiversity and ecological value. So, you know, I would say that he has done an enormous job. And I am doing a terrible job at answering your question because you wanted to know about my childhood days.

11:24It's fine, it's fine. You did a great job. Let me just jump in, because the other thing, if you look at the numbers, right, you had 340 ,000 African slaves brought over in the 1800s. Britain brought in almost a quarter of a million of indentured laborers from India, 19th, 30th, 20th century. Your racial mix now, 40 % Indo-Gyanese, 30 % Afro, 10 % indigenous and majority Christian. And you're a Muslim. Yeah. Tell me how that works. So it's a very interesting society. I once said to the Emir of Qatar. You're dropping some big names here. We are the king. We've now got a beer. It's good people because, you know, the Qatar is now known as the mediators of the world.

12:09You know, they've been doing a good job at that. But let me say this. So I said, maybe the country that can give the most practical examples of living together and bridging divide is Guyana. Because you can come to Guyana and you can see intermarriages between religious intermarriages. You can see not only intermarriages, but you can see the coexistence of all religions, the coexistence of all our people. The only time that you see strong sentiments that are ethnic in nature is when we are approaching elections. Because the main opposition, and I'm going to say this, but I like to have persons here also defending themselves.

12:59The main opposition primarily use race and ethnicity as their main mobilization tool. We use national development, national policy, and a unity platform. So the fact that a minority, a Muslim person, can be elected as president tells you a few things. tells you about the level of tolerance in our society, tells you about the acceptance of humanity, because our country more is a demonstration of humanity, how we value humanity. And maybe because it's how we are placed in South America, but very much a part of the Caribbean, our music, our art, our food is complex in some cases because of the mix that comes with it.

13:52But we have been able to, through all the difficulties from slavery, colonization, a long period, 28 years of dictatorship, one of the things that we have been able to do is to keep that level of tolerance, to keep that level of togetherness and understanding at a manageable level to today where I think it's totally integrated. you have a seamless transition between the different cultures, the different religion, the different ethnicity, and a new generation of Guyanese that are coming up. If I were to come to Guyana, are you saying I wouldn't feel racial tension? You won't feel it. You won't feel any religious pressure.

14:38You'll feel as if you're in a very happy environment. Because Guyanese are like that. They're very happy people, very life-oriented. in that they try as hard as possible to strike that balance in life. So culturally, from a work perspective, although I believe that our work culture is shifting because of the growth of the economy, which is good also, we are now incentivizing two jobs so that you get tax breaks on your second job. And that is because for the growth that is taking place, We don't have the size of the labor force. The human resource capital is just too small to fuel this growth that is taking place.

15:27Are you trying to get the diaspora back? Oh, that's a big part of the strategy. So we are now finalizing that human capital strategy, which is linked to the migration strategy and the type of human capital that we need. And you know the world is going through a crisis in healthcare, for example. Nurses are moving around globally. In the UK, the UK is recruiting heavily. In the Caribbean, in Guyana, we've all suffered from that. So we have those same challenges because we are building out a modern healthcare system that requires specialists, that requires specializations and a certain quantity of nurses.

16:09So, whilst we're building out our capacity and capability to train nurses, pharmacists, technologists, doctors to meet this future requirement, in the medium term, we will have and we have major shortages and we have been recruiting. So we are now finalizing this human capital strategy that will be used to structure the education system to deliver what we want now into the future, but also to examine the gap that exists. The human resource information system gap would allow us to understand what gap exists and where are the potential areas we can recruit human capital from to fill this gap. That sort of leads me on to the whole issue of the way that your economy is changing.

16:56And oil has been this amazing factor within it. So those growth figures that I read out at the start are just sort of mind blowing to most European countries right now. And the truth is, they could have been even bigger and even better because I get the sense, having looked into it, that the deal, I know it wasn't you in government, the deal that was struck with Exxon, the main American oil company, I get the feeling they got the better end of the deal. And so you could, to some extent, be even richer. But tell me, what has it been like to be part of this transition? And it's obvious in a way what the upsides are.

17:34Are there any downsides to this? So there can be major downside if your policy formula, your policy menu are dependent on oil and gas. If you look at oil and gas and the revenue from oil and gas as your main source of wealth, or if you take that revenue literally and say it is wealth, that's the first mistake. The revenue from oil and gas is not wealth. It is revenue. Wealth is created depending on how you invest that revenue. So for us, the revenue from oil and gas must be invested. Invested in reducing the cost of living, eliminating poverty, building modern infrastructure, giving the people of the country and the region, because our prosperity must lead to the prosperity of the region, the best access to health care, best access to education, increasing disposable income, reducing taxes, and investing in the other sectors of the economy that will make the economy broad-based, sustainable, and prosperous.

18:40Now, what do I mean? Let me give you some examples. Everybody speak about oil and gas. We are now in the top 10 countries for mining, in the top 10 for mining. This is based on reserve, and this is based on the quality of the mining claims. We're the number one country in forest management and the carbon market. Maybe the only country that has a structured carbon market from a tropical forest. We are now seeking to lead the world on biodiversity. We're the only country that can feed ourselves globally. And we're looking to become the food capital of the region. We are investing in human capital, as I said, as important means of transformation.

19:30So we are using this revenue to build an economy that is broad-based, an economy in which ecotourism, food security, energy security, climate security will be our major plank. I know you've written a book about this because your team sent it to me. How have you managed to make a country as relatively as small as Guyana self-sufficient in food? Yeah, and a lot of credit must go to our farmers. Because even in difficult circumstances, when the farmers had no access to drainage and irrigation services, when they had no access to farm-to-market roads or subsidies for agriculture, they kept farming.

20:12In difficult circumstances, people learned to survive. You know this. So in that period of dictatorship, when I was a boy, for example, we would plant gardens in our backyard. I worked in the rice field with my relatives. So you learn to be versatile. You learn to adapt. You learn to survive. And it's in that period that Guyanese families learned to survive. And many of them survived because of a kitchen garden. Many of them survived because of a small farm. Many of them, and then the survival then led to family and individual survival, then led to community survival. We are persons with exchange produce, the barter system.

20:57And one of the good things is that we never lost that spirit of growing our own food, of sustaining ourselves on our own food. We never lost that spirit of eating what we produce. Now we are going a step further by producing even what we import. because as you know, as society improves, as people's life improves, their taste for different product also changes. So we want to ensure that we are building a food production system that addresses even those things that we're importing. So it comes from the struggles of our people and building inherently a system that first looked at survival and after we started to invest on the different people's progressive party civic government agriculture became commercialized and now we have an entire food production system that we've been able to build Sometimes when countries or societies have had a sudden influx of prosperity there are two things that sometimes happen One is greed takes over and the second is that corruption can enter into the system in a difficult and dangerous way Have you seen any evidence of that sort of societal change?

22:13And also, how do you guard against the sort of corruption that sometimes associates itself with sudden wealth? So it has to be managed from two perspectives. Let's take, for example, the issue of greed. Greed has to be managed based on your value system. If our country changes its values, the value system of who we are, what make you a Guyanese? What are the traits that make you a Guyanese? then you can easily succumb to this notion that, oh, we are rich, we are wealthy, we can transfer resources to every family, and you forget that you are building for generations to come. You forget who you are as a people.

23:01You lose that foundational pillar of what make us Guyanese. And that is a conversation I've been having with the Guyanese people, that none of this must allow us to lose who we are. That is why we're investing in civic education. We're investing in the arts and culture. We're investing in building out opportunities for families to come out together in communities so that we do not lose who we are. We do not lose what make our society strong. We do not lose our cultural identity. And that is important for me. The issue of corruption, Look, growth and development comes with many challenges. But if you look at what we are doing, we are building in a mechanism to avoid as far as possible leakages within the system.

23:53So we have set up a natural resource fund. That fund is managed in an arm's length away from government independently. Is that the equivalent of your sovereign wealth fund? Yes, that's the equivalent of the sovereign wealth fund. Which of the wealth funds that we know of around the world are you trying most closely to model? That's a very, very good question. I don't believe in modeling. I believe in learning from different examples. But everyone, every country, we have our own challenges. And people will say, oh, Norway has the best sovereign wealth fund. Use their model. I would love to use Norway model.

24:31You know what is Norway model? For the first 20 plus years, nothing went into the fund. Everything went into the investment into the country. Building a strong economy, building modern infrastructure, building a modern healthcare system, building a modern education system, investing in the diversification of the economy. I would love that model, but I can't do that in today's world. Because from day one, it is how are you ensuring this fund create opportunity for the next generation? The level of scrutiny today is far superior to the scrutiny at that time. So when you look at these countries, everybody say Norway has the best model.

25:11I love that model. I would love to use that model. But we are using a model that is relevant for today. One that invests in the very things that Norway invests in, but also safeguard resources for the future. And the structure of the fund itself. When you look at these funds that were established, they didn't have a parliamentary process. All the resources that is spent from this fund must go through the full parliamentary process. So it goes into the national budget and it is debated in Parliament, audited by the Auditor General, and all the revenue that comes in the fund, the Minister of Finance must declare it within a time frame.

25:54Otherwise, he is exposing himself to 10 years imprisonment. That's a declaration of revenue coming into the fund. The other big connection you've got with Norway is the deal that you did with them on carbon credits and an even bigger deal with the Hess Foundation. Just I think I'm fascinated is how do these carbon credit systems work? So you've got 85 % of your land is forest. Sanding forest. Yeah. And you've done these deals, which essentially, how do you see them? Are they incentives to keep the forest? Are they incentive not to deforest? And what do you think of countries and organizations that do that in partnership with you?

26:34First of all, you know, Alistair, I have to congratulate you. Every time I answer one of your questions, you have resourced that answer to get another question that is even deeper and stronger. But that's good. That's good. I like this. So let's look at two things. One, where this started. we started, Arista, from a position where the world was giving incentives for reforestation. The world was not giving out any payment or any support for those who kept the forest. Instead, those who took the forest dung and built out their economy, they were now giving payments and incentive to replant the forest.

27:16And those that kept this forest intact for all of humanity were told, thank you very much, you did a fine job. So the system had great injustice and inequality. And that is because most who took the forest down were the powerful ones. They were the developed world. Those who kept their forest were those that did not have the capability to take it down, did not have the capital to take it down. And they were now told that, listen, man, thank you very much. You did a fine job. Keep that forest going. And we decided, no, this ain't working. This cannot work. There must be a system of compensating those countries who kept the forest and who are committed to keeping it.

28:06So we said, listen, we don't only want a market-based system to compensate those who have kept the forest, but we want to go a step further. We want to create a mechanism through which we are audited, through which our forest is monitored, because we wanted accountability in the system. So we subjected our entire forest to an evaluation, to an audit, and that forest is monitored externally. Now, for a country to do that, that is the top 10 in mining, that has oil and gas, tells you about the credibility of what we are building. It tells you about the value about what we are building and how much we believe in this forest and what the forest offers for the rest of the world.

28:52So we subjected ourselves. That is why we're the only forest that has carbon credit that are certified at jurisdictional scale. That is the entire forest. We're not talking about a forest in one area. This is jurisdictional scale in its entirety. So it is on that basis that we started the global movement on getting valuation done and developing this carbon market for tropical forests. You know, at Glasgow, we were happy. Prime Minister Boris supported that COP forest being on the agenda also. Today, it's a struggle to keep forests on the COP agenda and to get biodiversity on that agenda. but we have to continue that struggle.

29:39I should just jump in there. You've just broken one of the cardinal rules of this podcast. You said something almost positive about Boris Johnson that is not allowed under any circumstances but I'll now allow you to carry on. But maybe it's my style. I first look at all the positive things about people. Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. You know, I believe that we must keep positive energy in the room all the time. Okay, good. I've got you, I've got you. I really have to be careful with you now. We've got COP coming up in Brazil, right? And Brazil is a very, very close ally of yours. And I just want to know what the Trump-Lula relationship, whether that's something that keeps you awake at night as well.

30:24So Trump suddenly whacks 50 % tariffs on Lula because of Bolsonaro and the court case against him, which is kind of mind-blowing to think an American president does that, but he's done it. You're a very small country, not far from America, allied with Brazil. I just wondered how that makes you feel. So I want to first say that, you know, we are a very small country, but big things start with small ideas. And I believe that it is a thinking power and what you present that is large in terms of the global landscape. But you mentioned something very important. There is no doubt that the success of COP COP depends heavily on the developed world, especially the U.S., China, and India.