Twenty-six years after his last visit in February 2000 as Prince of Wales, His Majesty King Charles III arrives in Guyana on Thursday, October 29 for a two-day state visit.
Buckingham Palace said the visit, at the invitation of President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali and the request of the UK Government, marks 60 years of bilateral relations.
Guyana is one stop on the king’s Autumn Tour, which runs from October 27 to November 4, ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2026 in Antigua and Barbuda.
The king’s itinerary
The king’s first engagement is a meeting with President Ali at State House. The two will then attend a reception in the State House gardens, where representatives of communities across Guyana will join them to celebrate the bilateral relationship.
The king is Patron of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. In that role, he will join veterans and citizens of Georgetown (Rabbit Walk) memorial to honour British, Guyanese and Commonwealth military personnel who died in service. He is also scheduled to meet elected leaders of the National Toshaos Council (NTC).
At a Georgetown Botanical Garden, the king will view municipal conservation work and meet young leaders from environmental clubs involved in sustainability projects.
On Friday, he will attend a reception with British businesses and local stakeholders to learn about partnerships and investments in Guyana.
The king’s visit coincides with the second edition of the Global Biodiversity Alliance (GBA) Conference which will be held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC). He will meet scientists, indigenous community members and innovators, and will be briefed on the work of the Iwokrama International Centre.
His last engagement in Guyana will be on the Georgetown seawall. There, he will participants in the Wilton Park Commonwealth Sustainable Cities Initiative Dialogue and hear about practical steps toward sustainable urban development. That stop will highlight the renewed effort to restore mangroves along Georgetown’s coastline, which protected against coastal impacts and support wildlife.
A relationship rooted in the rainforest
The king’s ties to Guyana’s environmental agenda go back nearly two decades. In a September 2008 speech to financial leaders at Mansion House in London, the then Prince of Wales endorsed then-President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo’s proposal to protect Guyana’s forests in exchange for international payments. He described Guyana’s strategy as a “truly innovative roadmap of national development.”
During his 2000 visit as Prince of Wales, Charles travelled into the Iwokrama rainforest.
He became patron of the Iwokrama International Centre that same year and renewed the patronage in 2024. Iwokramamanages 371,000 hectares of rainforest. The forest was gifted to the international community at the 1989 CHOGM in Malaysia, and the Centre was established by an Act of Parliament in 1996.
The king has supported Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) since its launch in 2009 and has held it up as a global example. At the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen, he pointed to the Guyana-Norway forest partnership as the kind of financing needed to make forest protection economically viable.
The relationship has since grown into development work. The King’s Foundation is partnering with the Government on the Georgetown Urban Framework Plan, which is aligned with LCDS 2030. The partnership also includes seven demonstration projects, among them a new sustainable town called Canal City.
President Ali met the King at Buckingham Palace in January. Guyana became independent from Britain in May 1966 and a republic in 1970, and it has remained in the Commonwealth.