Joint efforts required to address human resource deficit in Guyana and Canada – President Ali at Canada Day Reception

His Excellency, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali on Thursday evening said Guyana looks forward to strengthening its relationship with Canada as he highlighted the need for a joint approach in addressing the shared human resource deficit.

The president was speaking at the Canada Day Reception held at the Canadian High Commissioner’s residence.

“While we speak about our joint approach on issues such as energy, food, and climate change, it is important to also take a joint approach in terms of the human resource deficit and to see how we can work out a common agenda through which we can build a system that supports the requirement of both countries and the region as a whole,” President Ali explained.

This area has already seen concentrated efforts. Currently, many Guyanese healthcare workers are benefitting from specialised training facilitated by the Government of Canada to diversify and strengthen the local medical workforce.

“We are seeing the results of this. We are seeing improvements in service. I want to position Guyana as an important destination for the provision of regional human resource assets to meet the skills deficit of countries around the world,” he opined.

This area of development presents an opportunity for the consolidation of the Guyana-Canada partnership through the establishment of training facilities to meet global human resource demands.

“We encourage Canadian accredited institutions to establish their footprint in Guyana for the training of nurses to meet your own demand, for the training of medical technicians to meet your own demands and also to meet regional demands,” the President expressed.

He also described Guyana’s relationship with Canada as an incredible one that transcends the social, economic, diplomatic, and political hemispheres, and characterised by deep people-to-people connections.

Guyana and Canada’s relationship is built on a 57-year foundation of trade, commerce, and people-to-people ties. This relationship has facilitated the forging of partnerships in a number of areas such as climate change, energy, and food security.

Guyana and Canada first established diplomatic ties in 1966.