Country Profiles

The Commonwealth Countries: Trade, Economy and Gender Profile

Introduction

The Commonwealth of Nations is an Association of 53 independent states spread over six geo-political regions. The countries are as diverse in their economy as in their polity and society. Its members range from Canada, world’s largest territory, on the one hand, to Nauru, one of the tiniest and remote islands. It, further, includes desert countries such as Namibia on the one hand, and Bangladesh, one of the countries most vulnerable to floods, on the other hand. And economically, its membership is shared by some of the poorest countries (in terms of GDP) such as Mozambique and Tanzania, and some of the wealthiest such as New Zealand and Australia. The present booklet has been prepared with the intention of presenting the data related to diversity in the economy and trade within the Commonwealth countries. This booklet also gives a snap shot of data on gender related indicators for each of the commonwealth country.

Countries under the cover of the Commonwealth

The data presented in the booklet have been collected from the Commonwealth Secretariat, World Trade Organization, United Nations, and the CIA Fact book. Calculations have been made wherever necessary. The presentation for each country has concentrated on an overall introduction for the particular country (overview, GDP) and trade (Exports/Imports) data.

Trade to GDP ratio is given for all countries which is an estimate of an economy's total trade of goods and commercial services (exports + imports, balance of payments basis) divided by GDP, on the basis of data for the three latest years available. This ratio is indicator of trade openness of the countries and their integration with the world economy. GDP is measured in nominal terms and with market exchange rates.

Even a cursory look at the trade data collected shows the existence of wide variations across regions and countries. For example, at its average, the trade to GDP Ratio is 89.71 for African region and 89.56 for Pacific region while it is as high as 143.14 for the Asian commonwealth countries. This shows the increasing trade openness of the latter compared to the former region.

Region-wise Coefficient of Variation is also given, along with the Average Trade to GDP ratio and Average HDI ranks, to highlight the dispersion of each country within the region. The coefficient of variation of a sample is the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean. It is a dimensionless number that can be used to compare the amount of variance between populations with different means. Higher coefficient of variance means greater difference within the value of the attributes (trade to GDP ratio (Table 1) and HDI rankings in this document (Table 2)) of the countries within a region.

Table 1: Ranking of Regions in descending order of
Average Trade to GDP ratio

Even in terms of the Human Development Indices developed by the United Nations, the regions vary from an average of 26.33 for Europe to an average of 139.44 for Africa. This goes a long way to present the existing levels of education, economic & political empowerment understood through participation in the workforce as well as in decision-making of the societies.

Table 2: Ranking of Regions in descending order of Average HDI Rank

Gender as an Issue

The Commonwealth Secretariat’s report on Gender and Development called Building on Achievements suggest the criticality of gender for development of the countries. This has been affirmed in different meetings of the Commonwealth Heads of Government primarily with a focus on promoting gender equality and empowering women for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The significance of gender linkage to trade is increasingly being realized as the countries of the world advance in the path of trade liberalization. The impact of the liberalization policies on women’s daily lived realities, and share in decision-making requires to be studied. 

Select Country / Region