I was recently asked, at a public meeting, what I felt had been my major contribution during my first term of office.
I replied that I have sought to turn the Commonwealth’s face towards the 21st century, in which it belongs.
Living in the present and looking to the future comes easily to the Commonwealth. Our focus is always on the young, even without the ‘youth-quakes’ whose tremors the world has recently felt. Most of our citizens belong to the 21st century generation.
The modern Commonwealth may have been created in the last century, but it appears to have been designed for the present one. Our young people see their future developing in a world poised between peril and promise, depending upon the directions we take. It is in this world that the Commonwealth must continue to exercise the ‘global wisdom’ function, which has been its special attribute.
Networking and partnership in the 20th century required long-distance travel, face-to-face encounters and hard-copy postal services. Nowadays, dynamic collaborative approaches with multiple potential partners can be conducted instead on a screen or with a hand-held device. Our new Internet gateway will exploit this potential: rebranded as ‘Commonwealth Connects’, it is about sharing knowledge and best practice, collaborating for growth and development, building resilience, and promoting values.
The Commonwealth has displayed a unique genius for avoiding sterility, division or deadlock. In particular, it has managed to find ways to bring governments, representing an unmatched global variety, together in common cause and purpose, to forge ahead progressively and with unity.
On the day I was selected, I instinctively described the Commonwealth as a “great global good”. Despite our vastly different and removed territories, we have created common ground. The divisions of North and South, of East and West, and differences of living standards and size, have not deflected the Commonwealth from its overriding purpose. Our efforts must be constantly directed at preserving the shared ground on which we build. And that ground is founded on consensus – a willingness to reflect and act collectively without forcing hands and with respect for all voices.
Consensus serves us well but we need to break fresh ground. When I convened the Eminent Persons Group – the Commonwealth’s ‘First Eleven’ for 2011 – its members were asked to develop options for reform that sharpen the impact, strengthen the networks and raise the profile of the Commonwealth. These are very much the outcomes that are on track to be delivered to leaders at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, Australia, this October.
The work of the Commonwealth falls into three broad categories: we offer innovation and ideas; we offer advocacy and consensus-building; and we offer practical assistance. To be complete, our work must be founded on advancing legitimacy, resilience and sustainability.
A major step forward in terms of practical assistance is our new Small States Office in Geneva. It is now up and running and is more than simply a financial convenience. We plan to make it the main centre in Geneva for support and recognition for small states and their right to participate equally and pursue their goals in the multilateral agenda of Geneva.
Similarly, our Commonwealth Youth Centres give us a physical presence on the ground in four regions and provide a base from which to lift the profile of the Commonwealth and support youth development in the field. I hope that by developing a broader capacity and as contemporary ‘Commonwealth Centres’, with youth preoccupations and programmes still deeply ingrained in them, they can become showcases for our 21st-century Commonwealth. As such, they will be a very concrete expression to the 21st-century world that we turn our face to the future with confidence and in hope.
