Richard Blair
Email: blair.richardanthony@gmail.com
Richard Blair (PhD) is the Advisor, CARICOM Agri-Food Systems, to the Honourable Zulfikar Mustapha, Minister of Agriculture in Guyana. He was previously appointed by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture as Coordinator-Regional Agenda for the Caribbean at the CARICOM Secretariat, and later served as the Deputy Programme Manager, Agricultural Development in the Trade and Economic Integration Directorate of the CARICOM Secretariat. Dr Blair lectured in the Economics Department of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Guyana and is an Adjunct Professor in its Department of Agriculture in the Faculty of Agriculture Sciences on the M.Sc. programme in Agro-Technology and Business. Dr Blair holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Hohenheim, Germany and a Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in economics from the Universidad Catolica Santo Domingo and the University of Guyana respectively, as well as a Master's Certificate in Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation and Information Systems, from the Laval University, Quebec, Canada.
Papers Published in World Economics:
Enriching the Human Development Index through the Inclusion of Affordable Healthy Diet
This article presents research findings that support adding ‘affordable healthy diet’ as an indicator in the ‘Long and healthy life’ dimension of the Human Development Index (HDI). The article also aims to link the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (End Hunger, Achieve Food Security and Improved Nutrition and Promote Sustainable Agriculture) with the HDI, by showing the importance of food and nutrition security in human development. A quantitative analysis is used, including econometric and statistical methods, to establish the relationship and the statistical significance of affordable healthy diet in the HDI. The study aims to be the first to integrate food and nutrition security in the assessment of human development, using testable and established statistical methods to improve governance, regulation, social protection and formalisation of the informal sector.
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