Paths to peace and prosperity in the Modern Commonwealth

It’s good to be back here in what could be seen as a popular corner of New Zealand, even if the rest of the country is 12,000 miles away. England’s ancient universities have always found a home for my country-people.

In 1917, Ernest Rutherford was “playing marbles”, as he described it, when he split the atom in Cambridge. Close to a century later, there are those who would say that my good friend, John Hood, has split the academic community in Oxford!

Whatever you have or haven’t done, John, I do thank you – and another New Zealand friend, Rita Ricketts – for the great honour of this invitation tonight.

Ernest Rutherford was, by origin, a farm boy from Nelson, at the top of the South Island. From atoms to atomic bombs, his extraordinary achievement leads me to remember another of my countrymen, this time my old political foe David Lange, who addressed the Oxford Union as New Zealand’s new Prime Minister in 1985. Lange famously argued that there was no moral case for nuclear weapons.

I read the transcript of that debate the other day. At one point he was interrupted from the floor: “Mr Lange, Sir, or if I may perhaps address you as 'Mate'…?” that person said. Lange parked the question masterfully when he responded, “I can smell the uranium on your breath…”

We will be less toxic tonight, but let’s not be inert. I would welcome your questions later on. For now, let me begin by challenging us all with a few of the myths of ‘your’ Oxford and ‘my’ Commonwealth.

Without quite knowing which of the Magdalen(e) Colleges ends with an E and which doesn’t, or where the apostrophes sit for the two Queen’s’ Colleges, I know enough of Oxbridge to be aware of the notions of English-ness, privilege and anachronism that surround it. It is viewed with a combination of reverence and admiration, but also some derision.

I’m also aware of what people say about the Commonwealth, whose obituaries I have so often read. “It’s the British Commonwealth”, people say, not knowing that the British Commonwealth was officially declared dead in 1949. “It’s a relic of empire.” “It’s a talk-shop.” “It has no teeth”. “It’s not much more than the Commonwealth Games.” And this one came to one of my colleagues straight from the lips of an Economist journalist: “The Commonwealth is aimiable, worthy, and occasionally relevant”... just as the Swiss say of NATO.

The Oxford response is that the myth is nonsense. This remains one of the great educational establishments of the world, and it is so because it is committed to excellence, and because it is contemporary and competitive – and all the more so for the work of John Hood.

The Commonwealth response is what I would like to discuss tonight. But it was in part broached by the very same Economist magazine, which wrote – just five months after those private remarks – that the Commonwealth is, quote, “a successful promoter of democracy”, good at “ostracising miscreants” and ”readmitting repentant sinners”. We “succeed as a talking shop”, it conceded.

Now I have witnessed, and even facilitated, this supposed talking shop. Four times in eight years, I have sat in a room for two days with 53-or-so Commonwealth Heads of Government, when all officials and media were locked outside. I heard them in passionate debate about the issues of the day – from killing off apartheid, to canceling debt, to agreeing a collective position on multilateral trade, to disagreeing on carbon emissions but still agreeing a range of environmental actions just three months ago, when they met in Kampala.

It’s all about words and actions. Maybe we should remind ourselves that new thoughts, ideas, initiatives all begin with talk. The test is whether the talk evolves and begets action which changes people’s lives. That’s how we measure success.

And bear in mind that getting the agreement of 53 governments to tackle a global problem is almost always going to have greater impact than one or two countries trying to solve a global problem alone. It takes time and patience to bring those differing views together – talk is necessary. What’s more, because our members are so diverse – from some of the poorest and smallest to some of the richest and largest countries in the world – talk followed by action in the Commonwealth tends to be picked up - and re-played, and developed - in other international settings.

I am billed tonight to talk about ‘Peace and Prosperity in the Modern Commonwealth’ – but in fact I am going to do so by talking about the two guarantors of peace and prosperity: Democracy and Development, our two cornerstones. Our Commonwealth business is summed up in those two words: ‘Democracy’ and ‘Development’. If you want to make us a ‘3-D’ Commonwealth, you can add the word ‘Diversity’. Peace and prosperity are the dividends of democracy and development.

As I come to the end of my second four-year term as Commonwealth Secretary-General, I’d like to look back on four ways in which the modern Commonwealth is now, I believe, stronger than it has ever been.

In one sentence: we are stronger as an organisation of values; stronger as an organisation of our times; stronger in our focus on and results for those who need us most; and stronger as an organization that looks out on the world, and works with others to meet its many challenges.

I have always said that no organisation has a divine right to exist. It has to compete, and it has to be relevant to its members – and I believe the Commonwealth does those things. It has to get stronger, and it does so.

An Organisation of Values

First, then, the Commonwealth as an organisation of values – the values we first set down in a Commonwealth Declaration in 1971, and which we have constantly strengthened since then. In 1995 we gave ourselves the facility to suspend those who flout those values, and we set up a representative group of Foreign Ministers – CMAG as we know it – to monitor serious or persistent violations of those values. Then, on my watch in 2003, we set down the Latimer House Principles that underline that all-important separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.

At various stages of the last decade, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe have been suspended from our Commonwealth councils. Zimbabwe eventually decided to take itself out of the Commonwealth in 2003 – a defeat for our and for others’ diplomacy, but a clear sign that our founding principles and standards could not be devalued, and a clear sign that the Commonwealth has teeth.

Fiji and Pakistan are currently suspended from the Commonwealth, both - I am sorry to say - for the second time. Suspension hurts, but it reflects the collective view and will of all those countries’ peers across the membership. It is one of the hardest decisions that can possibly be taken in the world of international affairs, and other organisations look at us with some awe and a good deal of admiration for having such a capacity to self-regulate.

Suspension doesn’t signal the end of the relationship. Far from it. We are actively engaged in Fiji right now to provide technical assistance and political support in the run-up to the elections scheduled to take place by March next year. And I expect a Ministerial group will very soon visit Pakistan in the wake of last week’s elections.

I’m reminded of how Sierra Leone’s new and democratically elected government in 1998 actually asked that it remain on our agenda – that our self-scrutiny spotlight remain focussed on it – even after democracy was returned. Sierra Leone saw this as a way of generating support from the rest of the membership to help buttress those values, as the foundations for that fragile country as it moved forwards. That’s proof of the positive, not the punitive, power of the way we safeguard our values.

Beyond the headlines about suspension, we have other sensitive cases on our hands. Take Kenya, where our election observers and others from around the world drew the same conclusions about election deficiencies. Kenya could and should have had a better election than it did.

Former Sierra Leonian President Tejan Kabbah, who headed our election observer group, was the first to start mediating between President Kibaki and Mr Odinga. I have been in close touch with both myself, and with Kofi Annan.

And now, we remain by Kenya’s side, continuing to encourage a political settlement, and standing ready to assist in implementing the reform roadmap that has been agreed.

Safeguarding our values and walking with our members along the path to democracy takes many forms. Sometimes, it happens via the quiet diplomacy of my Special Envoys in places like Swaziland, the Maldives, Tonga, and elsewhere. They have defused situations of real political tension.

Sometimes, it is in the help we give to countries in ratifying UN conventions or building national human rights commissions.

Sometimes it takes the form of building democratic institutions like Public Accounts committees, offices of ombudsmen, and civil service commissions.

Any which way, it happens. We are an organisation of values, in word and deed.

Responding to challenges

The second of our advances has seen the Commonwealth grow stronger as an organisation responding to the challenges of today and of tomorrow.

Two generations ago, we were instrumental in supporting the move to independence of many British colonies. A generation ago, it was the Commonwealth which did so much to dismantle the system of apartheid in South Africa.

As issues have emerged, we have tried to pre-empt them, or at least to react very fast to them. We run alongside them, and occasionally forge ahead to lead the pack:

- The Commonwealth, for instance, can take credit for identifying the unique problems and challenges of small states and having others help in squaring up to them. With 32 of our members having populations of less than 1½ million, we have a special interest.

- In the 1990s, we led global thinking on poor countries’ financial obligations, and can claim to be the parent of both bilateral and multilateral debt relief. You’ll recall the announcements made a few years ago at the UK-hosted G8 summit on debt forgiveness. We were thinking about it and talking about a decade and a half beforehand.

- At the start of this Millennium, we blazed a trail by going public on the problems of developing country doctors, nurses and teachers migrating to the developed world. They filled gaps in developed countries but left huge gaps behind them.

- When terror filled our TV screens in September 2001, we took on a specific role in implementing the UN’s Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Resolution 1373. That Resolution introduced new international obligations which needed to be met with new legislation in many countries. Kofi Annan asked me to help our smaller members. And so we developed model laws on areas like money-laundering and extradition procedures which they, and other UN members, have now enacted.

I am very proud of all this. It’s dynamic and it’s relevant. It’s the Modern Commonwealth.

It’s why, too, we are now using all of our governmental and civil society networks – people like our associations of geographers, foresters, statisticians and meteorologists – in agreeing our own Commonwealth responses to climate change.

It’s why our more considered response to 9/11 – beyond what you might call the defensiveness of anti-terror legislation – was to commission a report overseen by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. That report aims to help the world understand the tensions and fractures in society so that we can tackle them. The report calls on us to look beyond faith, at the dynamics of all communities, and at ourselves as individuals with many different identities. I commend it to you: it’s called Civil Paths to Peace.

Focus and results

Third, a quick look at the Commonwealth’s focus on, and results for, those who need it most.

Take young people: nearly half of our Commonwealth is under 25, and nearly a quarter is under 5. Yet 70 million of our Commonwealth children have never seen the inside of a school, and 150 million are out of work.

Hence the importance of our Youth Programme. It has been around for 33 years with offices and activities across the globe – giving youth training, micro-credit and mentoring. It works with governments to establish a young people’s perspective on precisely every aspect of government. The Commonwealth has given the world the UN’s Youth Development Indicators.

Take women: half of the people in this Commonwealth bear considerably more than half of its problems. Two-thirds of our children out-of-school are girls; and two-thirds of our people living in poverty or with AIDS are women.

Hence the importance of our work to make gender equality a reality – from policy work with Ministries to ensure that gender is recognised as a component of all government; to practical work involving women in trade policy and negotiations. And if that sounds too theoretical, we have been on the ground supporting women entrepreneurs. I never tire of quoting a Commonwealth project I once visited, training women bee-keepers in Malawi.

Our default position is to support those who need us most, whether it’s a small country overwhelmed in international organisations, or a group of brave young HIV carriers whom we sponsor to stand up and take their message – of education and compassion – to their peers.

An outward-looking organisation

And fourth, the Commonwealth which is stronger as an organisation that looks out on the world, and which works with others.

The queue of potential new members gives a clue to our strength and appeal. At various times and in various ways, we have had expressions of interest from a number of countries, as well as from various dependent territories. As of last November, we have new procedures in place for dealing with applications to join the Commonwealth, and we already have interest being expressed.

Being open to new members also means being open to new partners. We know very well that, on our own, we don’t have the strength, the resources, the leverage to meet all our goals. Hence our willingness to see our ideas and expertise taken up and used by, for instance, the World Bank on small states, the World Health Organisation on migrating doctors and nurses, the ILO on migrating teachers, the European Union and the African Union on building governance in Africa, the Pacific Islands Forum on building governance in the Pacific.

‘Being open’ goes further. We often talk about the Commonwealth as an alliance of governments and peoples. Some of you perhaps know some of the 85 organisations around the world that bear the name Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Games Federation is the best known of these – but there are also associations of our parliamentarians, business people, lawyers, journalists – even our dentists, museum curators, and more. Not only do these organisations do great things in their own right; they also support our Government work and priorities.

***

Ladies and gentlemen, that is my sketch of the modern Commonwealth – far too brief to do it justice, and far too long for many thinking about drinks or dinner.

But may I end briefly on the subject of education?

It pains me to say that the Commonwealth Secretariat has an annual budget that hovers around the £450,000 mark for education. I am happy, at least, to say that it is pound- and penny-wise in how it uses that sum. The inexpensive but high impact Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol – now ‘industry-standard’ in the hands of the ILO – is worth its weight in gold. So, too, our work in developing multi-grade teaching modules for Africa and the Pacific. Much of the work is unsung, in capacity-building work within Ministries of Education, and focusing Governments’ efforts on the educational aspects of the Millennium Development Goals – achieving universal primary education, and equal numbers of boys and girls in school.

50 years ago, Commonwealth Education Ministers met for the first time, here in Oxford. Next year, their successors will meet for the 17^th time, in Kuala Lumpur. Hundreds of Commonwealth teachers, professors, academic managers, and representatives of civil society organisations will also converge. Exciting things are happening, including our first ever Vice-Chancellors’ Forum.

There is also a massive fundraising effort to increase the number of Commonwealth scholarships, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Commonwealth Scholarships and Fellowships Programme. That programme now has some 25,000 alumni, who have gone on to do remarkable things.

I was talking to one the other day, a friend of mine. I certainly knew that his name was Manmohan Singh and that he was the Prime Minister of India, but I confess I didn’t know that he had been given his big break as a Commonwealth Scholar – at ‘The Other Place’, I believe.

2009 will also be the 60^th anniversary of the modern Commonwealth.

So I’m wondering: can Oxford help us celebrate those two birthdays? Can one of the world’s premier educational establishments transplant its imagination to those Commonwealth citizens who have never so much as sat under a tree, with just one teacher and one blackboard, and learned to count to 10? Because the modern Commonwealth is one in which 30 million children will never see the inside of a primary school, and a further 40 million won’t ever set foot in a secondary school.

50 years after that first Oxford conference, can you again help to shape Commonwealth education thinking? Can you support our scholarships? The resources of this great University, its different Colleges, its renowned academic Faculties, even the extraordinary resource of one of the world’s great booksellers and educational publishers, Blackwells, can help our cause.

50 years ago, Commonwealth Education Ministers met here and agreed that, I quote, ‘there are no frontiers to human knowledge: knowledge is not the exclusive prerogative of any nation or group of nations …. Our task is to share our resources to ever greater advantage.’

I hope that in our discussions now and at dinner, we might be able to enlist you in that task. For me, the priority is still Primary school expansion, and getting more children onto the very first rung of the education ladder. Much as we value the Secondary and the Tertiary, you simply can’t have them until you have the Primary.

Because education is the key to everything. ‘If you want to change the world, build a school’, said Amartya Sen. Education is the key to peace and democratic stability, the key to jobs and economic growth… to good health… to respect and harmony. It is the key to billions of unique human beings fulfilling their unique potential. Education is not just a development goal – it’s a fundamental human right.

Thank you again for inviting me here tonight. I look forward to discussing this more, and wish you all continued success.