The Commonwealth in the 21st Century
| Author | Kamalesh Sharma |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2010.00065.x |
| Date | 01 May 2011 |
| Published date | 01 May 2011 |
The Commonwealth in the
21st Century
Kamalesh Sharma
Commonwealth Secretary-General
The Commonwealth is a 20th-century organisation,
which is tailor-made for the 21st century. Since the
establishment of the modern Commonwealth in 1949, it
has stayed true to its fundamental values, while moving
with the times. It is those values, coupled with global
networks and ways of working together, which equip
the Commonwealth for the 21st century.
Eight founding members have become 54, accounting
for a third of the world’s population, and a fifth of its
trade. Embracing countries large and small, rich and
poor and of every colour and creed, it is a global organi-
sation in a globalising world, which proclaims a globalist
message – that our collective challenges can only be
met effectively and sustainably with collective responses.
The world is changing fast; as old polarities fade, new
sources of tension emerge. It is a multipolar world –
ready made for a multilateral Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth of its times
The Commonwealth has never been able to stand still.
Among its many reactions to changing times, in the
1950s and 1960s it led the move towards decolonisation
and supporting newly independent states, and then the
fight against racist rule, particularly in southern Africa. In
the 1970s, it set up the first global programme focused
on young people and their needs, and launched a novel
‘south–south’ technical assistance programme to help
many newly independent states with their development
priorities. In the 1980s and 1990s, its early climate
change work paved the way for the 1992 Rio Earth
Summit declaration. It also pioneered the notion of
forgiving developing countries their debts, leading to
what became known as the Heavily Indebted Poor Coun-
tries (HIPC) initiative. This Commonwealth idea, launched
at its Finance Ministers Meetings in 1987 and 1997, is
now a global good worth well over $100 billion.
In the 21st century, it has broken other ground in
launching global best practice in the recruitment of
teachers and health workers from the developing world
to the developed. The Commonwealth has also been at
the forefront of efforts to repair a fracturing world – in
the wake of 9 ⁄11, the UN asked it to develop model
anti-money laundering and extradition laws, while at the
same time it brought out groundbreaking research as to
the cause and the solutions of the fault lines in societies.
The second decade of the 21st century brings its own
challenges and opportunities. The Commonwealth has
responded by, for instance, intensifying its work to
ensure that the concerns and needs of all its members –
especially the small, vulnerable and voiceless – are taken
into account in global decision-making and policy-
making councils such as the G20. Its climate change
focus is now on helping small and vulnerable states
access the funds and the technology to enable them to
respond to the threat. And it addresses new challenges
as they emerge: one such is rapid urbanisation, in the
face of which it is collating and sharing experiences from
cities on five continents.
The Commonwealth of the vulnerable
The Commonwealth’s first constituency is its most vul-
nerable. Well over half a billion of its citizens subsist in
dollar-a-day poverty, largely in its most populous states
of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria. Its share of
the world’s unschooled, unemployed and those with
HIV ⁄AIDS is disproportionate. Meanwhile 32 of its 54
members are officially ‘small states’ of less than 1.5 mil-
lion people.
Alongside the World Bank, the Commonwealth pio-
neered the science of small states – faced as they are
with unique threats and vulnerabilities, but blessed with
unique inbuilt strengths. The Commonwealth’s ‘resilience
index’ for small states has recently been adopted,
unchanged and unchallenged, for its quality as the
framework of assistance provided by the UN and World
Bank.
The Commonwealth was also one of the first to launch
a gender programme, promoting women’s interests in
education, health, enterprise, politics and more. Its youth
and women’s work is intensifying, in establishing guide-
lines for governments to ‘mainstream’ these issues –
with policies, programmes and budgets to match – into
Global Policy Volume 2 . Issue 2 . May 2011
Global Policy (2011) 2:2 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2010.00065.x ª2011 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Practitioner Commentary
217
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