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‘Development And Democracy Go Hand In Hand’

20 May 2004

Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon has urged members of the Association of Commonwealth Studies (ACS) to help widen the influence of the Commonwealth Report on 'Making Democracy Work for Pro-Poor Development'. He was speaking at the Second Annual Conference of the ACS held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London, UK, on 17 May 2004.

The Report was prepared by the Commonwealth Expert Group on Development and Democracy. Chaired by Dr Manmohan Singh of India, the Expert Group was established at the request of the 2002 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Coolum, Australia. The Coolum Declaration states, "Recognising the links between democracy and good governance on the one hand, and poverty, development and conflict on the other, we call on the Commonwealth Secretary-General to constitute a high-level expert group to recommend ways in which we could carry forward the Fancourt Declaration [on Globalisation and People-Centred Development, issued by the 1999 CHOGM in Durban, South Africa]." The Report was received by the Abuja CHOGM last year. It constitutes the template for the work of the Commonwealth over the next few years.

In his address Mr McKinnon said, "We need your help in ensuring its recommendations are known, discussed, debated. That is how promoting development for the poor will gain momentum. That is how we will get better policies that benefit the worse off in our Commonwealth of Nations. That is how we will get better, more effective democracies, which will deliver greater growth and better prospects to those who need it most. We look forward to working in even closer partnership with you to deliver those results.

"At the heart of the Report is the recognition that development and democracy go hand in hand. They're interdependent. As I have said before, they are twin engines of social progress: if one fails, you have a society working on a single engine. The challenge is to make sure they are mutually reinforcing. In other words, we must make freedom work for growth and make growth work for freedom.

"The Report makes a number of recommendations to achieve this. These recommendations are designed to help governments draw up policies that alleviate poverty and consolidate democracy. In particular, it outlines a number of institutions and principles aimed at strengthening democracies. These include free and fair elections and representative legislatures; an independent judiciary; a transparent public account system; machinery to protect human rights; the right to information and active participation of civil society."

Also present at the Conference were the new members of the Civil Society Advisory Committee of the Commonwealth Foundation. Mr McKinnon said that this committee was "a sign of the ever closer collaboration which is developing between the 'official' and 'non-official' Commonwealth. It's thanks to this kind of collaboration that we're able to do more for the people and communities of the Commonwealth.