Guyana’s Human Capital Paradox: Investing More, Returning Less

About the Book

Guyana is among the fastest-growing economies on earth, yet its citizens remain among the least well-served by their own public investment in health and education. Guyana’s Human Capital
Paradox asks why — and answers with unusual rigour. Drawing on more than a decade of budget data, UNDP’s Human Development Index and the World Bank’s Human Capital Index, Gampat and Mahabir show that Guyana consistently outspends most of its regional and global comparators on human capital and consistently under-delivers on returns. Their finding is captured in a single, unforgiving ratio: Guyana out-invests 64 per cent of its comparators, yet 80 per cent of them obtain better outcomes. Behind that arithmetic lies a human cost — a child born in Guyana today can expect to realise barely half her productive potential. The authors resist easy blame, locating the shortfall in efficiency, governance, and the seductions of an oil economy that mistakes infrastructure for development. The result of this data-driven study is both a diagnosis of the paradox and a map of the way forward. But the book is also a warning: that resource wealth is no substitute for the patient work of building schools that teach and health systems that heal.
— Dr. Terrence R. Blackman, Professor and Chair, Department of Mathematics, Medgar Evers College, City University of New York

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