Secretary-General keynote speaker at inauguration of the Conference de Montreal

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma today (9 June 2009) delivered the keynote address to the Conference de Montreal, an annual economic summit of the Americas region that is now in its 15th year. He focused on the challenges to solidarity in a globalised and compacting world.

“Solidarity used to be a politically coded word which could not be used without loaded interpretation in a discussion about the future direction of a society's economic policy. But the world has changed immensely since the last decades of the last century. We now understand the term to be a pointer towards healthy value-based societies: solidarity is a pivotal and vital requirement in societies that wish to be sustainable and prosperous,” the Secretary-General said.

“Nor can solidarity be limited to one aspect of a society's progress and prosperity. It is a human challenge: solidarity requires all participants in society in all walks of life and all aspects of public policy to be treated as a coherent whole and to participate in that way, rather than being limited solely to social or economic aspects.”

Mr Sharma explored public debate in recent years concerning the evolution of the geopolitical world from a bi-polar to multi-polar to a non-polar model of the globe. The Secretary-General concluded that the priority needed to be on considering the state and health of the world, the opportunities it is providing for all people in all states, and the human dimension of governance and public policies, rather than on defining a specific model to describe the way in which state actors interact.

He referred to the importance of promoting a contemporary world where globalisation goes hand-in-hand with social justice, and where the world’s powerful and rich act upon their moral responsibilities to the world’s poor and dispossessed. “Governance of international institutions is a good example. Today's global governing bodies need to reflect solidarity of purpose and approach by being more inclusive. The Commonwealth and La Francophonie have worked together to promote understanding that all states are part of a ‘G-193’; the G-20 comprises 90 per cent of the globe's GDP but it also needs to work together with the G-173 which comprises the 90 per cent of the world’s nations not seated at that table.”

Mr Sharma concluded that the desired outcome of all efforts should be equal value for the largest and the smallest, the richest and the poorest.

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