ABSTRACT
Karl Bennett’s comparative study of economic decline and the growth of the informal sector in Guyana and Jamaica is revealing. Guyana’s prospects had considerably improved over the 1990s as a result of policy reform and democratisation. It is heartening to report, at the macroeconomic level, a steady improvement across many of the key economic indicators. Decentralisation, improving local resource management and improving institutional coordination are a package of issues which could help to ensure a more sustainable development future but which appear far from finding any satisfactory resolution at present. There is an enormous social welfare challenge facing the country. When meeting the basic needs of society is applied as a yardstick to assess development progress in Guyana, there is clearly still a very long way to go. The urban middle class is small in Guyana. In neighbouring Brazil in 1989 there was 700 environmental organisations mostly based in the cities of the prosperous south east.
