Lord Howell, former chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs in the UK Parliament discusses the continued relevance of the Commonwealth to British Foreign Policy.
What do you think are the Commonwealth’s core strengths?
In a word the Commonwealth is a network. We live in an age of global information networks of a fantastic kind. The world is no longer organised in empires and blocs. And we are part of this network and so are the other 53 Commonwealth members.
It is multi-faith and trans-continental, unlike many other blocs. It embraces rich and poor in an equal relationship and of course there is a fantastic cement of common culture and common understanding and values. All of these things make the Commonwealth the ideal model for the 21st century.
How would you like to see the Commonwealth evolve in the 21st century?
It has to grow wings. It’s under funded. It’s underappreciated by many of its members, including the UK. It has got to be a much bolder organisation that recognises its innate strengths. When I say grow wings I don’t see why it shouldn’t have a more vigorous foreign policy aspect, the EU after all has a foreign minister, and an active foreign policy. The Commonwealth could have a similar kind of involvement. The Commonwealth could take a far stronger role in the whole development pattern of the globe. The Commonwealth is basically ready to take off it’s just not being supported the way it should at present. It’s got to raise its game.
I think it could have associate members as well as new ordinary members. Some of the giants of the world are waiting on the sidelines, not to join, I am thinking of Japan for instance (14% of the World’s GNP) but they would be very happy to be observers and associate with the Commonwealth. It’s an enormous opportunity which we have to exploit.
What role do you think the commonwealth should play in British foreign policy?
A much more central role. The British foreign policy system has been paralysed for the last 30 or 40 years by the belief that somehow we are being squeezed out of Europe the wonderful continentals are doing things and we have to get in on their game?. This is a complete misunderstanding of the way the world is working. Power has shifted to Asia, to the booming Asian economies and may soon shift to Africa as well. That is where our commonwealth links take us and therefore while we remain very active members of the European union we should strengthen our foreign policy links with the Commonwealth because together we can do great things- not only economically but in terms of peace and stability, peacekeeping, and international global stability.
Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, former President of Zambia and Rt. Hon. Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minster of Australia, said it was time that the Commonwealth engaged proactively with the new Zimbabwean government and welcomed her back into the Commonwealth family.
Fraser said that ‘if Zimbabwe was one of the Commonwealth’s greatest successes, it is also one of its greatest failures’. Kaunda said that the ‘road to recovery that we are now witnessing in Zimbabwe shows that she belongs to the Commonwealth’. Neither predicted that the country to which the Commonwealth gave birth in 1979 would end up leaving in 2003.
In interviews conducted by the Royal Commonwealth Society, Fraser and Kaunda said that the Commonwealth can achieve great things if only leaders would make better use of it and take it seriously as a forum to enact change.
Zimbabwe is emerging from a serious political conflict and an economic meltdown. In those circumstances, Zimbabwe has received wide-ranging humanitarian support in the past and we thank the international community for that. But we need to move to a stage where transitional support is targeted ensuring the transition moves on and is consolidated. My appeal is for transitional support in the key areas that will strengthen the capacity of the new state in the new political dispensation these include education, health, water and agriculture for food self-sufficiency. These are, I admit, insatiable needs, but we have to limit ourselves to the committed resources.
How can the Commonwealth help Zimbabwe? Should we be doing more? And is progress possible with Mugabe as President? Discuss below.
Thirty years after the Lusaka conference which pushed the British Government and Zimbabwean nationalists towards a settlement that led to independence, Trevor Grundy has written that the Commonwealth Conversation is trying to revitalise an organisation which saw its heyday in the seventies and eighties.
The Conversation comes almost exactly 30 years after the famous August 1979 CHOGM in Lusaka, Zambia, a gathering of Club leaders who used their influence to persuade the British Government to arrange a constitutional conference in London (Lancaster House) which effectively ended the seven-year Rhodesian War that claimed at least 30, 000 deaths.
UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband and RCS Director Danny Sriskandarajah launch the Commonwealth Conversation at the RCS, 20 July 2009, London Continue reading…
Watch UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband emphasise the importance of engaging with the Commonwealth’s two billion people about the future of their association. Continue reading…
Watch Lord Janvrin, former Private Secretary to H.M. The Queen, explain the Commonwealth’s unique role in bringing people together in an era of globalisation. Continue reading…
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Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, former President of Zambia and Rt. Hon. Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minster of Australia, said it was time that the Commonwealth engaged proactively with the new Zimbabwean government and welcomed her back into the Commonwealth family.
