The Unpaved Road: Barriers to Guyana’s Integration with South America

Guyana, a small nation on the shoulder of South America, is more than meets the eye.  Recently named the next chair of UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), Guyana has an increased opportunity to influence South American politics and convince itself that it belongs in the South American league.  With increased power, however, Guyana would also face new issues regarding South American integration.The Guyanese president has recently filed a libel suit for being accused of racism and the U.S has offered Guyana a defense advisor, like the kind the Pentagon has arranged for a number of its neighbors.  Guyana must address both issues in a diplomatic and efficient fashion.  Moreover, a decision is now pending regarding the paving of the byway from Georgetown, Guyana’s gritty capital, to Lethem—a much smaller community on the Takutu River, which borders Brazil.

In a way, this situation can be used as a simile for whether the English-speaking country will decide to integrate with its South American neighbors by removing trade barriers, free movement of labor and goods with the rest of the region, as well as increased economic and political links with its neighbors. According to The New York Times, the Guyanese believe that “the status of this muddy, sometimes impassable, road represents nothing less than the future of Guyana itself.” Guyana has a long history of continental isolation, environmental devastation, racial and identity tensions, and unremitting corruption, all of which generate formidable obstacles to economic development and regional integration. The delicate balancing of self-improvement policies, along with slowly increasing regional ties, may be the only tangible way out of what could be the country’s dangerously high degree of isolation.

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This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Stephanie Lloyd