Development means the aggregate elevation of living standards of all the people

Dear Editor,

Now that the election fever is spreading, and politicians are blowing a lot of hot air about how they will develop  the country, flaunting that IMF figure of a 84% growth rate, I might say this to them:

Be careful about bamboozling the common mind by quoting GDP and growth rates and making them sound synonymous with development. Growth and development are two different things. What we have in Guyana has always been deformed growth and heavily skewed income distribution with very little relationship to development. Growth spurts or sudden oil windfalls have never really blessed any country with real development but a glaring skewed income distribution.

You can’t boast about the people receiving an average wage increase of 20% when the top echelon got 50 -100% and sugar workers received zilch. That is a skewed measure.  Development is a managed process. Development means the aggregate elevation of living standards of all the people and involves, health and nutrition, education and culture, recreation and sanitation, safety and protection, conducive home and workplace environment…all of which the GDP is a very poor measure.

I would like to propose a different set of criteria by which actual development is assessed.

Thus, having introduced Guyana to the Transparency International Indexes (SN Dec. 18, 2007), leading to the subsequent establishment of TIGI, I now field the concept of measuring economic development using Gross National Happiness Indexes, (GNH) originally used by Bhutan – the country which sparked worldwide interest in this unique index, the Gross National Happiness (GNH) as a relevant measure of development. More can be learned on youtube.com.

Yours faithfully,

Gokarran Sukhdeo