RSS Feed |The largest, global dialogue ever undertaken between the peoples of the Commonwealth about their association…This is the Commonwealth Conversation.
Although the Commonwealth Conversation came to an official end in March 2010, the work of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) set up to explore options for Commonwealth reform is just beginning in earnest…
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Weakening Commonwealth needs dose of ambition
The largest-ever public consultation on the future of the Commonwealth concludes with a call for bold reform and greater investment if the 54-member association is to avoid being marginalised in an increasingly crowded marketplace. ‘An Uncommon Association, A Wealth of Potential’, the final report of the Commonwealth Conversation, is published today to coincide with annual Commonwealth Day celebrations around the world. Click here to download a summary of the final recommendations or the full report.
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After eight months of consultation, today, on Commonwealth Day, we draw the Commonwealth Conversation to a close with the publication of our final report, ‘An Uncommon Association, A Wealth of Potential’, which sets out ten key recommendations. Click here to see a summary of these or, for those of you with a longer attention span, the full report.
We hope that you will find these to be a fair representation of all that you have told us over the last few months. We are enormously grateful for all of your contributions – this has been such a fun project because your posts have been so interesting, not to mention provocative! Continue reading…
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As the Commonwealth Conversation comes to a close we are delighted to announce the winners of the My Commonwealth and Commonwealth Chat competitions. Continue reading…
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On Thursday 26th November, the Royal Commonwealth Society facilitated a BBC World Debate in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. On the theme, ‘The Commonwealth at 60 – Does it Have a Future?’, the World Debate focused on many of the issues highlighted by participants in the Commonwealth Conversation. Watch it by clicking on the picture or follow this link. Continue reading…
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At the end of their meeting in Trinidad and Tobago in November 2009, Commonwealth leaders called for the establishment of an ‘Eminent Person’s Group’ to undertake an examination of options for reform. Read their full statement about this here. But who do you think should be in the Eminent Person’s Group? People who know lots about the Commonwealth, like former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser? Or people who know less about it, like businessman Richard Branson? Share your thoughts with us, and we’ll pass them on…
Tags: CHOGM, Eminent Persons Group
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Derek Ingram, veteran Commonwealth journalist, muses on the association’s finances:
One of the best outcomes of the recent Commonwealth summit in Trinidad was that at long last the leaders agreed to rationalise the organisation’s finances. Many people are under the impression that the Commonwealth costs a lot of money. Nothing could be further from the truth… Continue reading…
Tags: Commonwealth, Money, Trinidad
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Recent months have seen the issue of homosexuality being widely debated in various African member states of the Commonwealth. Uganda’s proposed ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009’, calling for the execution of ‘repeat homosexual offenders’, has been internationally condemned. Late last year, Rwanda came close to criminalising homosexuality for the first time when its penal code was being revised. Meanwhile, an engaged gay couple in Malawi were recently arrested and charged with ‘unnatural offences’. Is homophobia a real problem in the African Commonwealth, thus contradicting the high human-rights standards the association is supposed to uphold?
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Tags: CHOGM, monarchy, Queen, Trinidad, young people, youth
Categories: Connecting with Young People, homepage items, My Commonwealth, The Commonwealth's Relevance
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