Preparing Our Workforce for Tomorrow’s Opportunities

Jobs, Opportunity and the Future

Foreword

This Policy represents a new and bold perspective of engaging our youth in national development. This policy considers the physiological state of adolescence and young adulthood, and provides the framework for building national pride, entrepreneurship, education, and a work ethic conducive to upward mobility and fulfillment of one’s personal goals.

The introduction of the Opportunity Industrial Complexes services to provide our youth with one possible mechanism for developing the skills necessary for their personal development within the framework of our nation’s goals.  Participation in this initiative is purely voluntary.  Considering the state of our current affairs (youth apathy, rampant unemployment, rising crime, and lack of opportunity) any cost associated with the development of this program dwarfs the cost of maintaining the status quo.

My Campaign Staff deserves my thanks for the patience they have exhibited in assisting with the compilation of this paper. - Faith Harding

Guyana is a unique nation. We have great challenges, but we also have great opportunities. Today, we have the second highest unemployment in South America. We need jobs and we need them now. But we can overcome this. Our greatest natural resources in not in the ground or sea, it’s our people. They give us hope for the future. They deserve opportunities to have good jobs and achieve the dignity that gainful employment brings.

The best path to bringing Guyana into a new frontier of economic prosperity is to create productive jobs for Guyanese. Here’s my promise: as President my top priority will be job creation. To do this I have a 100 Days Jobs Plan that will be the centerpiece of my first one hundred days in office. I’ve seen how businesses can succeed and how they can fail. I’ve traveled across the country as the former Minister of State for Economic Development and around the world as a Senior Policy Advisor for the United Nations and the World Bank. I know what can work. I know we can do it.

My 100 Days Jobs Plan outlines the key initiatives my administration will undertake if I am elected President to create good jobs for all Guyanese. Though this plan is my commitment for the first hundred days of my administration, I pledge to continue to work assiduously on behalf of the people of Guyana to make us the economic powerhouse we richly deserve to be.

Faith A. Harding
February 2011

Creating a sustainable future for Guyana will stimulate economic growth and workforce development.  We are formulating a comprehensive development plan part of which entails full employment for Guyanese.  This plan describes Faith Harding’s Administration first “100 Days Jobs Plan.”  This plan envisages the steps that the Faith Harding Administration will take in the first 100 days in office to stimulate economic development in Guyana, and to bring meaningful employment to Guyanese.  This plan represents our commitment to take the bold steps necessary to stimulate our economy, to have Guyana’s bountiful resources working for all Guyanese, and to have all Guyanese working.

The hallmark and primary focus of Dr. Harding’s working life has been in Guyana. The impact of her contributions can be justly described as ‘significantly impacting’ because of the yeoman service which she has given to her country and its people.

While serving as a Minister of Government in the PNC administration from 1989 to 1992 Dr. Harding was credited with reforming and transforming the Ministry of Public Service of which she was responsible for. During that time, Dr. Harding while being a member of parliament fought vigorously to ensure that new laws and legislations were passed so as to create avenues that the rights of women and children were protected and given priority.

Dr. Harding was instrumental in starting an education programme that was regarded as the best in the Caribbean and has been intimately involved in a wide range of volunteer projects that turned around communities and local neighbourhoods in Guyana. An example of some of the projects and programmes that she implemented included the Tiger Bay area. This saw her rallying a disparate community together to form a committed, rehabilitation group that was focused on rebuilding the community while being able to improve education and economic conditions for youth and women.