In 2026, we see rapidly shifting international power relations with a complex interaction between political, economic, technological and military forces. Enormous challenges arise for countries, regions and international bodies in the transition to a new world order and an unpredictable future. This article is about Guyana’s ‘development paradox’, which is experiencing ‘growth without development’ amid the oil boom. Can Suriname prevent this paradox with offshore oil extraction?
Text and image Jack Menke
The development paradox refers to enormous economic growth that is accompanied by less well-being and a more unjust economic distribution. Guyana has the fastest growing economy in the world due to the oil boom and is experiencing the ‘development paradox’ that previously occurred with bauxite and gold.
Commercial offshore oil extraction, driven by ExxonMobil, has increased per capita income from about $6,000 before the oil boom to more than $30,000 within six years. Guyana therefore belongs to the group of countries with a high per capita income.
Opposite to this, according to it Democracy and Development Report 2026 of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) that Guyana ranks fourth in Latin America and the Caribbean due to the enormous emigration of mainly skilled professionals. This is just one place behind Haiti, which is struggling with massive internal conflict.
Explosive economic growth
Guyana’s explosive growth since commercial extraction in 2019 is evident when visiting the capital, Georgetown. The false prosperity is mainly reflected in renovated roads, international hotel chains, housing projects, modernized hospitals and luxury apartments.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Guyana led internationally with average real GDP growth of 47 percent per year between 2022 and 2024. After an estimated overall economic growth of 19.3 percent in 2025, the World Bank predicts continued and greater growth, with the neighboring country consolidating its position as the fastest growing economy in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Loss of human capital
While projections are to triple the 400,000 barrels of oil per day of 2024 by 2027, the dark side of ‘growth without development’ is becoming increasingly clear: growing inequality, poverty and brain drain.
Guyana, despite unprecedented economic growth from offshore oil, is experiencing the greatest loss of human capital in South America. The migration mainly concerns professionals who emigrate to the United States and Canada, leaving neighboring countries Venezuela and Suriname far behind. When compared with the Caribbean, Guyana also ranks at the top, together with Jamaica and Haiti. According to the Democracy and Development Report 2026′, the emigration of skilled professionals ranks Guyana twelfth in the world in terms of brain drain and fourth in Latin America.
Guyana’s record economic growth is also accompanied by enormous social inequality. Economic growth does not automatically increase the quality of life of the majority of the population. Income inequality is gradually becoming more important than the apparent prosperity in the form of modern infrastructure and malls.
From socialism to capitalism
Former British Guiana (now Guyana) is the first country in South America where the PPP, a socialist party with support among the largest ethnic groups (Hindostanis and Creoles), won the elections in 1953. The British colonizer responded to the victory of this political party by declaring a state of emergency and a hundred days’ imprisonment of political leader Cheddi Jagan.
The road to the independence of British Guiana then took place in an international ‘Cold War’ atmosphere. After the state of emergency in 1953 and the British intervention against the socialist government, contradictions were fueled within the PPP.
After this, this previously unity party with Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham split into the PNC (Burnham) and the PPP (Jagan). A cluster of opposition groups – PNC, United Force (UF) and trade unions – supported by the US, increased political polarization. This resulted in social unrest and violence with strong ethnic undertones in 1963 and 1964. In this situation, the Jagan government lost its authority.
The British colonizer intervened to restore peace. The electoral system was changed from a majority to a proportional system. Thanks to the new electoral system, the political alliance led by the PNC won the 1964 elections. The UF and the PNC formed a coalition government and in 1966 Guyana became politically independent.
Since then, there has been a political climate in this society with a division between the PNC and the PPP, which coincides with the division between Creoles and Hindustanis. Guyana was autocratically led by Forbes Burnham for 28 years (1966-1984). Since 1992 there have been fair elections again and there has been alternating between a PNC-plus and a PPP-plus government.
(read more below the photo)
Downside of Guyana’s oil age
In 2026, with the current PPP government in Guyana, we see a shift towards a model that reflects the worst aspects of the American political system, a form of capitalism characterized by protection of the elite and the creation of increasing inequality. Current Guyanese politics revolve around commercial oil interests, lobbyists and guaranteeing profits. The top dogs get tax breaks and legal protection, while the population is asked to ‘work harder’ and ‘be patient’.
We now also see more and more foreign lobby companies hired with state resources that favor investors over citizens. This leads to rising costs of living and a growing divide between political elites and ordinary citizens. Oil revenues, like American corporate wealth, are being concentrated rather than distributed. This is sold as ‘development’, but the benefits generally do not reach the poor.
Diversification attempts
In both colonial Guyana and Suriname, popular initiatives to diversify the economy were thwarted by the colonial government, which maintained an economic monoculture. Guyana had a sugar monoculture until well into the twentieth century, which remained the economic mainstay until after the Second World War. In Suriname, bauxite was the leading sector, in contrast to Guyana where this sector collapsed due to mismanagement and nationalization.
In both Guyana and Suriname, the colonial monoculture strategy was continued without success after political independence. The frustration of diversification efforts between 1900 and 1940 also meant that important established local production activities outside colonial plantations – with the exception of rice – were no longer significant by the end of this period.
Lessons for Suriname
Will Suriname, like Guyana, fall into the ‘Dutch disease’ after 2028? This means that the value of the local currency increases due to the production and export sales of offshore oil. This increase in value reduces Guyana’s competitive position and causes exports to decline, resulting in reduced economic production and rising unemployment.
Moreover, the economy is becoming more one-sided because the strong position of the booming sector (in this case oil) is pushing out the other sectors. In today’s profligate world, offshore oil is still the most important driving force in international economics and politics.
Neither Guyana nor Suriname has broken the colonial circle of unilateral foreign-dominated mineral economic exploitation. The less predictable international relations force both countries to take advantage of new development opportunities. Suriname and Guyana are distinguished by their enormous biodiversity and largely untouched forests that function as the lungs of the earth but also offer sustainable development opportunities.
As far as Suriname is concerned, the best option is to use all the expertise in the South American region to design a diversified development strategy based on a harmonious relationship with nature. This not only breaks the mining dependency, but the country can also save the majority of its people from the negative consequences of yet another resource curse.
