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Feb 22, 2009 Features / Columnists, Ronald Sanders
By Sir Ronald Sanders
Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, will become the Chairman-in-Office of the 53-nation Commonwealth in November this year when his country hosts the organisation’s biennial summit.
For two years thereafter, Mr. Manning should, theoretically be “Mr. Commonwealth” – the face of the leadership of the group of countries whose multi-ethnic, multi-cultural member states are drawn from every Continent of the world and whose nearly two billion people come from one of the two largest nations in the world and some of the tiniest.
The Commonwealth is a “voluntary” association of States held together by their shared history and common values which are enshrined in various declarations. The “Crown of the United Kingdom” – in this case Queen Elizabeth II – is the symbolic “Head of the Commonwealth”. It has no governance structure apart from the Summit and its Secretariat headed by a Secretary-General elected by all Commonwealth Heads of Government to serve a four-year term with a limit now of two terms only.
Nonetheless, the old cliché about the Commonwealth is perfectly true: if it did not exist, nations would try to create it because it does bring together in a common forum, speaking the same language, 53-leaders who represent every known faith, race of people and size of economy. There could not be a better microcosm of the world and, therefore, no better forum for seeking solutions to the world’s problems.
As Chairman of the Commonwealth Summit in November in Trinidad, Mr. Manning has a real opportunity to shape the direction of the Commonwealth over the next two years. The Commonwealth countries of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) also have a chance, through Mr. Manning’s on-going Chairmanship, to ensure that issues of importance to them are not only discussed at the Summit but are advanced internationally right through to the end of 2011.
One of the issues should be the financing of the Commonwealth Secretariat itself and the raising of its profile.
For small countries, such as those in the Caribbean and Pacific, the Commonwealth is vitally important as tool of their foreign policy. As examples of this, it is in the Commonwealth that both Belize and Guyana first garnered international support against the territorial claims by Guatemala and Venezuela respectively, and it is the Commonwealth that has not only been an ardent champion of small states since 1977, but has helped to fight specific issues such as the assault on small jurisdictions by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) over so-called “tax competition”.
But, in recent time the older and more powerful members of the Commonwealth have been paying lip service to the organisation. They have done enough to keep it alive but stopped short of contributing more to return it to the vibrancy it enjoyed when it fought racism in Southern Africa and worked to change the international economic order.
Just recently, the British Conservative Party opposition spokesman on Commonwealth affairs, William Hague, accused the British government of “turning its back” on the Commonwealth. He makes the point that the Commonwealth is under-used and that more money would help. Britain pays £54 per person per year to the EU, £10 to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, £2 to the United Nations and only 20p to the Commonwealth.
The same parsimonious approach to the Commonwealth is reflected in the lack of real zeal by Canada, Australia and New Zealand all of whom are participants in other powerful decision-making bodies such as the OECD, the G7, the G20 and the boards of the IMF and World Bank.
Smaller states – the Caribbean among them – have also not helped to improve the financial status of the Commonwealth. Many of them have been tardy in making their annual contributions and some of them are in arrears. When they don’t demonstrate their appreciation of the immense value that the organisation is to them, they play in to the hands of those larger countries that would like to keep it as a tame pet rather than a vigilant bulldog.
The new Commonwealth will be 60 years old in April. The occasion of the Summit in Trinidad in November is therefore an historic event that should not be allowed to pass without the Caribbean and other small countries seeking to take advantage of Mr. Manning’s chairmanship for the next two years.
CARICOM countries and the CARICOM Secretariat should have, by now, established a permanent team to help Mr. Manning as Chairman to carve out an agenda for the Summit and to work with him over the next two years to make his Chairmanship-in-Office a success.
While it is true that Mr. Manning would have the resources of the Commonwealth Secretariat and the very astute and experienced Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma upon whom to call, the reality is that they will be 4,000 miles away and a busy Head of Government should be able to summon his team on request. What is more, Mr. Sharma himself will call upon Mr. Manning as Chairman-in-Office for guidance from time to time.
The four other Heads of Government, who have been Chairmen-in-Office, have not made much of the opportunity unlike the Heads of Government who serve six-month terms as President of the European Union (EU). But, the brevity of the Presidency of the EU might be the contributing factor to its success. Two years is simply too long to expect a Head of Government to split his or her attention between pressing national affairs and the Commonwealth’s business unless they are backed-up by a full time and dedicated team.
Reform of the global financial architecture, changes in IMF and World Bank criteria to match loans and grants to real needs, fundamental change in their conditionalities, the expansion of the G20 to include a permanent representative voice of small states, the consequences of climate change including sea-level rise and a well-funded programme to help developing nations mitigate the effects of global warming while preserving their environment should all form part of the agenda for the Summit with well-researched and well-argued papers from the Caribbean.
Manning has identified the Commonwealth Caribbean with the hosting of the Summit. The Caribbean, in turn, should provide him with a strong team, drawn from the region, to help make his two-year period as the Commonwealth’s Chairman-in-Office a benefit to the Caribbean’s people and to the global neighbourhood.
(The Writer is a consultant and former Caribbean diplomat)
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