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…

Heads of government, meeting in Trinidad & Tobago last November, called for the creation of an EPG partly as a result of the findings of the Conversation.

The Group’s goals are to sharpen the impact, strengthen the networks, and raise the profile of the Commonwealth. They will report to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which will take place in Perth, Australia in October 2011.

The Group is chaired by former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and includes representatives from Australia, Canada, Guyana, Jamaica, Kiribati, Mozambique, Pakistan, Uganda and the UK. Click here to find out more.

In the past few weeks, we have met with several members of the Group to share what we discovered during the Conversation. However, if there is a particular message or recommendation you would like us to relay to the EPG, post your comment here and we will pass it on!

Alternatively, you can fill in a questionnaire designed by the EPG to gather the opinions of Commonwealth citizens all over the world. Click here to complete their survey.

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.

Once a major player on the world stage, the report argues that the association has neither the clout nor the resources to fulfil its potential. Its official institutions, charged with promoting development and democracy across its member states, have a workforce half a percent of the United Nations and an annual budget one percent of that of the UK Department for International Development. The Secretariat’s budget has dropped by 21 percent in real terms within the last twenty years, despite the number of Commonwealth members rising from 48 to 54.

The report also argues that additional funding will be no panacea. The association is perceived as failing to live out its values and principles. Bolder leadership, more ambition and innovation, and a better use of its unique strengths will be crucial to long-term survival.

Run by The Royal Commonwealth Society between July 2009 and March 2010, the Commonwealth Conversation gathered the opinions of tens of thousands of people through a range of methods including a website, opinion polling, surveys, events and online focus groups. Its final report contains ten recommendations for the whole Commonwealth “family”:

1. The Commonwealth must “walk the talk” on the values and principles it claims to stand for.  
2. The Commonwealth needs stronger leadership if it is to have a meaningful voice on world affairs.  
3. The Commonwealth is often seen as anachronistic and fusty. It needs to become bolder and much more innovative in the ways that it works. 
4. To attract more investment and correct misperceptions of being largely ceremonial, the Commonwealth needs to prove its worth by measuring and demonstrating its impact. 
5. The Commonwealth must stop spreading its limited resources too thinly and instead identify and exploit its unique strengths.  
6. Greater investment is needed if the Commonwealth is to fulfil its potential.
7. The Commonwealth is a complex association. It must clearly communicate its identity, purpose and achievements in an accessible way.
8. Lengthy Commonwealth communiqués and statements appear unfocused and unattainable. They must be used to set priorities.
9. The Commonwealth is as much an association of peoples as it is of governments. The interaction between the two requires significant improvement.
10. The Commonwealth is often seen as elitist. It must reach wider, become less insular and engage beyond narrow Commonwealth circles.    

Director of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Dr Danny Sriskandarajah said:

“The Commonwealth needs a bold 21^st century makeover. At its founding, Nehru had ambitious hopes that the Commonwealth could bring a “touch of healing” to the world. But, today, the Secretariat’s annual budget is less than what British people spend daily on health and beauty products.

More money will help, but to fulfil its potential, the Commonwealth must make more innovative use of its resources and networks. I hope the results of this consultation will act as the catalyst for change.”

DOWNLOAD Press Release

DOWNLOAD Summary Recommendations

DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT: An Uncommon Association, A Wealth of Potential

DOWNLOAD ‘Common What?’, Emerging Findings of the Commonwealth Conversation

View Final Director’s Blog

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!

But, as so many of you have told us, talk is wonderful but action is better. The real imperative now is to walk the talk. We hope that all of you – indeed all of us – can now do our bit to help ensure that the Commonwealth is a vibrant and dynamic association well into the 21st Century.  

For our part, here at the Royal Commonwealth Society, we are already busy trying to help the Commonwealth gets its groove back! Watch this space…

Actually, please note that we will not be updating the Commonwealth Conversation website very often for the foreseeable future (but all of the existing content and your comments will continue to be available to view). You will have to find us at the main RCS website www.thercs.org.  

With many thanks

The Commonwealth Conversation Team

My Commonwealth
A 16 year old student, Quek Yihui, from NUS High School, Singapore, won the ‘My Commonwealth’ competition for under 25 year olds and a £200 prize.

The competition, which was judged by the current Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma and former Secretaries-General Sir Don McKinnon, Chief Emeka Anyaoku and Sir Sonny Ramphal, asked young people under the age of 25 to write or draw a response to the following:

The year is 2049. It’s the Commonwealth’s 100th birthday! Imagine that you are the Commonwealth Secretary General. What would your Commonwealth look like and do?

The competition received 250 entries from 24 countries around the world. The second prize was won by Asabi Rawlins, aged 16, from Trinidad and Tobago, and the third prize by Boodhoo Vijna Hiteshna, aged 17, from Mauritius.

ALL WINNING MY COMMONWEALTH ENTRIES CAN BE VIEWED HERE

Commonwealth Chat
During the Commonwealth Conversation, the Royal Commonwealth Society asked people all around the world to host a discussion, or a ‘Commonwealth Chat’, with their friends or colleagues about the future of the association.

We awarded prizes to the best reports from these chats, and are pleased to announce that Kareem Folajaiye, from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, won first prize and £200 for his report of a discussion with fellow students.

Cornelia Ndifon, from the International Training and Education Centre for Health, Otjozondjupa Region, Namibia, won the second prize, and Wajahat Nassar, from the University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan, won third prize.

ALL WINNING COMMONWEALTH CHAT REPORTS CAN BE VIEWED HERE

Congratulations to them all! To find out about more competitions that the Royal Commonwealth Society is currently running, see www.thercs.org/youth/competitions.

In the middle of organizations such as the United Nations, and the European Union, and even international religious bodies such as the World Council of Churches, identity and questions about who we are as a people and how we are to be as citizens are critical for discernment, discretion and direction.  And thus, citizenship, within the Commonwealth of Nations, could be a valuable a subject of debate and discussion.

The Commonwealth is host of nations who claim good government, justice, and human rights as essential in the context of international relationships.  As technology provides the means of easy international mobility like never before, who we are as global citizens, or at least, citizens of the commonwealth, needs to be considered with personal awareness along side of national claims and the place where we are in the world among all peoples. 

How do we cross borders with integrity and honesty?  How do we intersect with those who claim a different geographic territory as exclusively belonging to them with respect and dignity?  What standards do we follow when boundaries tend to divide rather than bring different understandings together in harmony and peace, in fairness and wellbeing?

How can a deep level of appreciation and acceptance be achieved for the plurality of various traditions, legends, narratives, customs, colours , cultures, and creeds?

In what ways are policies and proclamations of immigration impacted with a visible and tangible form of a common citizenship of the Commonwealth?

 The Commonwealth is a vibrant and growing association of states working together in a spirit of cooperation, partnership and understanding.  With the vision and wisdom of the Harare Declaration, a common citizenship among all peoples of the Commonwealth could be possible.

David Spence, RCS Council of Mainland British Columbia

Michael Palin, English comedian, star of Monty Python, and one of the world’s most travelled TV presenters, talks about his experience of the Commonwealth. He highlights the importance of Science and Technology (2010′s Commonwealth Day theme) and says the Commonwealth should advocate responsible tourism.

In their initial press release, the Commonwealth Election Observation Mission, which is being chaired by former Jamaican Foreign Minister Mr K D Knight, said they saw ‘a generally well-administered election day but shortcomings in the pre-election period and incidences of inter-party violence taint election’. Read the full press release here on the Commonwealth Secretariat website.

In an article published in The Times newspaper on 3 February 2010, South Asia correspondent Jeremy Page said that the Sri Lankan election is a rare chance for the Commonwealth to play a leading role on the world stage.

For the first time in two years, the Commonwealth may have a chance to raise concerns about deteriorating political freedom in South Asia’s oldest democracy. If it speaks out, it is sure to upset Sri Lanka and maybe some other Commonwealth members with questionable democratic credentials. If it pulls its punches, however, it risks undermining the Commonwealth’s core principles, and setting a poor precedent for other members.

Read the full article on The Times Online here, and let us know what you think below.

Lord David Howell, Deputy Conservative Leader in the House of Lords and Chair of the 1996 Foreign Affairs Committee report on the Future of the Commonwealth, stresses how everyone seems to be noticing the Commonwealth except in the UK. His article gives some ‘Royal Foreign Policy Advice’.

Has anyone noticed how, in the evolving global order of things, the Commonwealth is climbing steadily up the agenda of importance, relevance and potential? The Queen has certainly noticed, and devoted half her Christmas Day broadcast to explaining how the Commonwealth was ‘in lots of ways the face of the future’. Her husband has also noticed, and through his support for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conference (next one due in 2013) is responding precisely to HM’s call for the Commonwealth to gather young people together to ‘bring creativity and innovation’ to global challenges, as well as practical solutions..

The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy also seems to have noticed, because it was he who turned up at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago to seek stronger support from the Commonwealth network  for his international aims. And so has the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, also attending the Trinidad gathering.

So also have leading Japanese politicians, who now make regular enquiries about Commonwealth events and ask to attend them. So have a lengthening queue of smaller states applying for membership, of which the latest to be admitted is cricket-playing, and now English-learning, Rwanda.

So have a whole raft of international business investors who are moving growing volumes of capital and technology from one part of the Commonwealth to another – e.g from Canada to the Caribbean, from India to South Africa, from Australia to Malaysia – in a criss-cross pattern of south-south capital flows which are replacing the old north-south stereotypes.  

But come nearer home and things look rather different. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) publications studiously downgrade the development of the Commonwealth network in their international priorities, putting the UN and the EU top of the list, and forgetting the ‘C’ in their nameplate.

For the Tories, William Hague has been making increasingly strong statements about the emerging Commonwealth soft power network and its growing significance for British interests, but Hague is not yet in the Government and has yet to contend with the blinkered disdain of the Whitehall foreign policy establishment.

What is it about this colossal trans-continental network, covering almost a third of the human race, that excites the wider world and yet attracts so little interest in London?

First there is history and second there is suspicion of rivalry with other current objectives.

The history problem is that with the end of empire the Commonwealth came to be seen a  sort of compensation, a Britain-centred club or talking shop  for remembering the old days, along with plenty of post-colonial grumbles, a touch of nostalgia and not much else. It was simply not noticed that out of the old chrysalis was emerging an entirely new entity, composed not of  mostly struggling low-income states but of some of the world’s most dynamic and fastest–growing economies and markets, and with booming India, not  Britain as its centrepiece. Nor was it noticed –and still in many quarters has not yet been – that in the information age the subtle commonalties and interfaces of Commonwealth membership were becoming just as important to British national interests and security as traditional hard power deployments – possibly more so.

The other hang-up – that somehow giving a more central place in UK foreign policy to the Commonwealth network distracts from Britain’s other priorities on the world stage, notably effective membership of the EU, of the Atlantic Alliance and the UN, reveals even weaker understanding of the new international architecture. There is no conflict at all between being good Europeans, with strong commitment to regional cooperation and interests, and stronger Commonwealth ties. Perhaps there was once, way back when the UK first joined the European Community, but that was many yesterdays ago in a world of different trade patterns, different communication patterns and different distributions of power.

On the contrary, the UK might well be doing rather better in the unending manoeuvres and tussles over the EU’s future between integrationists and decentralisers, (of which the Lisbon Treaty is only one pause in a constant struggle), if it had put Commonwealth network interests more vigorously to the fore. Besides, the EU and the Commonwealth are two quite different components of the 21^st century global system – the one seeking to consolidate regional bargaining power and solidarity of broadly similar cultures, the other linking together in a fascinating mosaic of formal and informal ties and associations a far wider grouping of powers, cultures and philosophies. (The last UK Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report on The Future of the Commonwealth, counted 202 non-governmental Commonwealth organizations and 46 official ones).

Is the expanding Commonwealth network treading on UN toes? Again, the answer is that it offers a different kind of platform on which nations can cooperate – and one which is more friendly and intimate, especially for smaller nations. It should be seen as a necessary 21^st century add-on or reinforcement to the world’s 20^th century institutions. 

The weaknesses of the UN system were on agonising display at Copenhagen. The strengths of the Commonwealth system were very visible, for anyone who cared to study them, when they addressed climate issues, security and peace-keeping issues, development dilemmas, common problems from the financial turmoil fall-out and a host of other immediate challenges at their recent Trinidad gathering. When it comes to resolving the core conflict of the age between sustainable future growth and defeating present poverty – which more or less sunk the Copenhagen gathering –  the dialogue between today’s and tomorrow’s Commonwealth leaders seems to offer a distinctly better – and happier – forum for the key reconciliation of purposes the world now requires.

We are seeing here the new international system in action. And if the question is ‘what’s in it for the UK?’, the answer is that it is increasingly good for business. As the balance of global power shifts eastwards and outwards the modern Commonwealth network now links us into some of the world’s fastest expanding markets and largest sources of savings and capital investment, at a time when the limping West badly needs both.  

The Commonwealth is indeed, in the Queen’s phrase, ‘the face of the future’. But are the Queen’s Ministers and subjects listening?

The debate was moderated by the BBC presenter Zeinab Badawi, with a panel comprising David Miliband, UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs; Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba, Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth; Stephen Chan, Professor of International Relations at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies; and Dipu Moni, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister.

The one hour programme was broadcast seven times over the weekend of 28-29 November and carried on BBC World Service Radio to an estimated worldwide audience of 100 million.

What do you think about the debate? Leave your comments below.