The next meeting is to be held on August 8 at which time a number of submissions will be made on the various issues raised at Friday’s meeting. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) hosted the meeting at its Brickdam offices and among those present were representatives of the Guyana Bar Association, the Guyana Trades Union Congress, the Guyana Human Rights Association, GAP/WPA and most of the donor community.

The meetings with the stakeholders will be devoted to dealing with the implementation of the decisions of the engagement between Jagdeo and Corbin. They are part of the measures the two leaders have agreed to put in place to track the monitoring of the decisions. The Jagdeo/Hoyte dialogue floundered because of the lack of agreed monitoring systems to track the timely implementation of the decisions and this resulted in their disagreeing on what had and had not been implemented.

The failure of that dialogue took the country to the brink of anarchy during which a wave of violent crime swept through the country. In February Corbin agreed to “constructive dialogue” and in May his party resumed its seats in parliament. Since then there has been a palpable reduction in tension and the beginning of a slow return to normality.