Realising people’s potential

Poverty, ignorance, disease and discrimination were highlighted by Secretary-General Don McKinnon as “massive challenges” facing civil society and governments “within our Commonwealth”.

“[These challenges] affect us all, wherever we are. And we are all part of the solution,” he said at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth People’s Forum in Kampala, Uganda, on 18 November 2007.

Mr McKinnon noted that the subtext of the Forum’s theme -- Realising People’s Potential -- is that not enough people are using their talents, ‘potential’ and aspirations to full effect.

“The Commonwealth is largely about raising the potential of those who need it most: women, young people, poor people [and] people on the margins of our societies,” said Mr McKinnon. He added that civil society’s work is directed at these groups of people.

The Secretary-General then turned to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting theme of Transforming Societies to achieve political, economic and human development'. “Transformation is above all about people -- and it is about democracy and governance. And that…is where civil society comes in. A lively civil society is a fundamental part of a transformed society. You can’t have one without the other.”

• Mr McKinnon also acknowledged the Commonwealth Foundation in his speech, “which for over 40 years now has coached and coaxed the voice of civil society in the Commonwealth.”
• He addressed the role of civil society and its “capacity to protest, and to cajole, and to criticise, and to hold accountable [as well as its] capacity to thank, to lend support to government initiatives, to take part in them, to be objective and apolitical.”
• The Secretary-General then said that the “rise of civil society as a social and political force in individual countries, and transnationally [has] been a huge part of the spread of democracy.”

Click here for the full text of this speech

Secretariat Links:

• Country Profile: Uganda