The Commonwealth: Face of the Future?

Today we are celebrating Commonwealth Day. It is a day where all Commonwealth citizens can reflect on our shared values and heritage and take stock of our achievements and the challenges we face together in the year ahead.

The Commonwealth is an extraordinary organisation whose member states share common values of democracy, development and prosperity – values that seem very appropriate to the current situation in the Middle East and North Africa and those struggling for change. And this year’s theme for Commonwealth Day, ‘Women as agents of change’, further reinforces the importance of Commonwealth values in what is the centenary year of International Women’s Day.

It’s hard to understate how unique the Commonwealth is; an association of like-minded states, spanning every continent, all the world’s major faiths, embracing developed and developing states, with a third of the world’s population and half of that population under 25. Its membership includes many of the fastest growing and technologically advanced economies in the world, great markets of today and tomorrow.

The Commonwealth already contributes significantly to international affairs, brokering agreements between African neighbours, calming tensions in fragile states during contested elections. And it provides a forum for smaller nations who may feel their voices are lost in larger multilateral structures. It is an organisation not just of governments but of networks in which civil society organisations play a key role. It is an organisation with great potential for tackling the global issues of our time.

For this reason, the British Government sees the Commonwealth as a key multilateral organisation, a unique soft power network and an ideal global platform for the 21st century. As the Foreign Secretary made clear in his speech in Sydney, Australia, we see Britain’s active membership of the Commonwealth as a key component of our foreign policy.

But we need to reinvigorate the Commonwealth to help it reach its full potential. This vision for the future is not just about the UK. All members must help shape this unique organisation and ensure it is meeting everyone’s needs. Many of us are thinking on similar lines. At the last Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago all governments recognised the need for the Commonwealth to look to the future, and ensure we are an organisation that fully realises its potential on the global stage, plays to its strengths, upholds its values and works to increase the prosperity of all of its members.

The next Heads of Government meeting in Perth, Australia this October will be pivotal. We have a real opportunity to shape the Commonwealth network to react, engage and lead on the world stage. Heads will have a chance to consider the recommendations of the Eminent Persons Group, established at CHOGM 2009 to review the work of the Commonwealth, contemplate the findings of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) review, and importantly, as a united body, discuss the current set of complex global challenges we all face.

We would like to see a revitalised Commonwealth focussing on its brand strengths of democracy and development, a strengthened CMAG protecting our values, but also offering encouragement to those facing challenges to democratic development. We want the Commonwealth to lift the prosperity of all its members through increased free and fair trade. I see an increased commitment to democratic values and increased trade and expanded investment as two sides of the same coin.

We want the Commonwealth to become a leading voice in the global economy, working to liberalise trade, break down barriers for international business, resist protectionism and contribute to the Doha Development Agenda.

The Commonwealth network with its shared principles of democracy, good governance, similar legal systems and a shared language is ideally placed to provide solid foundations for doing business and a platform for trade, investment, development and in turn prosperity.

We also believe small and vulnerable states should feel that the Commonwealth network offers them a platform to voice their opinions and to receive timely assistance and support on the issues of our time such as climate change.

So Perth is pivotal. In Port of Spain Heads agreed on the need to look carefully at our future, and in Perth Heads will need to take vital decisions, in response to these recommendations, which will shape the role of the Commonwealth, help it to realise its potential, and have more impact in our networked world in the future. A revitalised and strengthened Commonwealth focussed on its core values can help transform the lives of its citizens, particularly of those most adversely affected by poverty and conflict – women and girls. Sharing these values with its neighbours, particularly at the moment in the Middle East, the Commonwealth can help others to put in place the building blocks of democracy, openness and freedom on which the stability of the world depends. As the Queen said in her 2009 Christmas message, the Commonwealth is “in lots of ways, the face of the future”.

ENDS

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