56th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference

**1**

Two anniversaries, and a call for renewal and partnership

To Speaker Marende and to all our Kenyan hosts ...

... to all Honourable Speakers and Parliamentarians, national and local, from far and wide across this great Commonwealth ...

... and to Secretary-General Shija and all of his team at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association ...

... I thank you warmly for this invitation to address you today, and sincerely wish you good and productive conferencing here in Nairobi.

Two years ago, just a few months into my tenure as Commonwealth Secretary-General, I joined you in Kuala Lumpur.

One year ago, I was very pleased that Deputy Secretary-General Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba was able to represent me in Arusha.

In 2010, I am delighted to be back with you again – and particularly to be in Kenya at the dawn of a new era, with a brand new Constitution ushered in at Uhuru Park a fortnight ago, amidst scenes of great jubilation.

My medium may be words, but what came to me when I first began to think about this address were, in fact, numbers.

The number 56 – this is, of course, the 56th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, in a long history of global service.

The number 60, because you well know that the modern, inter-governmental Commonwealth reached its diamond jubilee last year: justifiably proud of its past, and pressing ahead.

A precious stone must always be polished.

The Commonwealth of values; the Commonwealth that moves with its times; the Commonwealth of the vulnerable; the Commonwealth of partnership: this Commonwealth has been true to its core, yet it has always evolved.

And I do believe that it has fulfilled the implausibly prescient hope of King George VI, at the close of that momentous meeting in London in 1949 – which so bravely and far-sightedly reconstituted this association, ‘freely and equally associated’ – that this fledgling organisation would ‘redound to the happiness of millions’.

I believe it has done just that.

We are here today because the Commonwealth is a mighty cause, and a ‘great global good’.

Yet it has no inherent right to think that it can and will remain so, without constant questioning and constant renewal.

There are very real areas of expectation from the inter-governmental Commonwealth, and we are the first to acknowledge them.

Like increasing our impact – especially given that our human and financial resources are so modest.

Like strengthening our networks – especially given the task of mobilising and coordinating all those communities in the public, the private and the ‘third’ sectors, which are our most precious asset.

Like raising our profile – especially given the constraints in making public what we often deliberately do in private, and in galvanising opinion – amongst both governments and peoples – around the principle and values that bind us.

This is why our Heads of Government, meeting in Port of Spain last November, tasked us to create an Eminent Persons Group – to look at these questions, and more.

Eleven exceptional people have been chosen – representing in every way the incomparable variety of the Commonwealth; and under the distinguished chairmanship of former Prime Minister Badawi of Malaysia, a great friend to this organisation – to make their recommendations.

Their ongoing task is to hear the voices of all – of ordinary people, of civil society, of business, and of course of governments and parliaments.

The EPG, as we call it, will report to our next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Perth next October.

I cannot over-emphasise the importance of this Parliamentary community playing its part in that process of constructive self-appraisal, and renewed and forward-looking commitment.

By letter to Secretary-General Shija, I have already invited you to do so.

And in doing so, you will be marking the full significance of my next number: 99.

For you yourselves stand on the brink of a century – and Commonwealth cricketers and non-cricketers alike will rise to their feet to applaud this magnificent hundred.

The CPA is one of the oldest Commonwealth organisations.

It is older, as we have seen, than the modern inter-governmental Commonwealth itself.

Yet it, too, like any other body, has to keep its credentials burnished.

It, too, is tasked with maximising its impact, its networks, and its profile.

The potential we see in this room – in which an organisation with 16,000 members has assembled representatives of its 175 national, state, provincial and territorial Parliaments – is formidable.

The fact that it is bound by the same democratic values makes this community one of huge potential, another ‘global good’.

So the challenge for the Commonwealth parliamentary community in its 100th year – just as the challenge already issued to the wider Commonwealth in its 61^st – is to define how that potential can best be realised.

Invaluable though it is, especially as a chance for peer-to-peer exchange and support, this Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference is but one small part of the power and potential of your own networks,

Your strength is your numbers, and the quality of the experience you bring and share, about the things which matter to you most.

Without partnerships, we are nothing: my words are all about partnership.

Time and again, we hear that what defines this Commonwealth is its common and voluntary commitment to the principles of democracy, freedom and human rights – and, with them, lives lived to the full.

The burden of my words today is strengthening and applying those principles, because I believe that together we could do much, much more – in sharing ways to make democracy work better, and in sharing ways to make democracy deliver its greatest dividend, which is one of the special themes of this meeting: ‘Development’, and its core task of reducing poverty.

**2**

A democratic sketch – shared Commonwealth values

Before I say how we might properly mark our joint anniversaries and promote democracy and development through parliament, I would like to paint the most impressionistic of pictures as to the world – and particularly the world of democracy – which we inhabit.

First and foremost, it is a shared world.

Shared, in the sense of the fast globalising world in which boundaries get blurred, as both civil and uncivil society gets globalised.

And shared, in the ways in which Commonwealth citizens feel at home on five continents.

Whatever our different models of parliamentary democracy, they are built on the same foundations.

On the small and beautiful island of Tobago last November, I had the pleasure of attending a Commonwealth youth parliament at the House of Assembly in Scarborough, the second oldest in the Caribbean after Barbados.

With the utmost propriety, 12 young men and women sitting at fine teak tables begged leave of the Presiding Officer to speak to a motion on climate change.

It must be said that there seemed to be no opposition: both sides of the House were unanimous, that those even younger than themselves must be made wise to the effects of climate change, and that they must be made effective in following the wisdom of consuming less energy.

That day, I was privileged to witness articulate, impassioned, reasoned, responsible, good-humoured but purposeful debate.

The Ayes duly had it, and I reflected that I had witnessed something which I might have seen on a placid day in the Lok Sabha in Delhi, in the Palace of Westminster in London, or anywhere in the Commonwealth on this continent of Africa, or the Pacific.

The power of the Commonwealth network is formidable.

And this network transcends the details of size, and structure, and practice.

Whether a parliament sits for 100 days of the year, or 200...

... whether it is the 700-plus MPs in the two houses of the Indian Parliament, or the 10 members in the single chamber in Tuvalu ...

... whether it is a national assembly in a Caribbean state or a regional one like the East African Legislative Assembly ...

... whether half of its members are women (as they are in Rwanda), or a third, or a quarter ...

... whether there is a sizeable majority in a country like Mozambique, or a majority of one in our most recently elected parliament in Australia ...

... in each, it is essentially the same in spirit.

So democracy is always recognisable – and the journey of democracy pushes onwards.

I cannot but reflect that in some of the Commonwealth's oldest and strongest democracies – take Australia, Canada, India and the UK – no single party has won a majority at the last election.

Yet the business of democracy and of government continues.

Coalitions – and political give-and-take – are themselves an increasingly important and evolving feature of the democratic culture.

Earlier in the year, in the Northern Ireland Assembly, I quoted the great John Pym, a passionate Parliamentarian in a rather different – 17^th century – Commonwealth.

“... A Parliament is that to the Commonwealth which the soul is to the body. It behoves us therefore to keep the facility of that soul from distemper.”

You all enjoy the privilege – and the trust, the responsibility, and the hope – of having been elected.

You are indeed ‘the soul to the body’, and I urge you to see the collective potential that you, as a Commonwealth parliamentary community, can and should have.

The need to proclaim and demonstrate democracy as our chosen path has not gone away with what some perceived as the great global contest with communism having gone in democracy's favour.

This proved not to be 'the end of history', but certainly a historic surge, and an opening of the prospect before us.

In our national struggles - as mostly nascent independent states in the vast sweep of our history - to secure and advance the freedoms, dignity and welfare of our peoples, the great democracy project will remain work-in-progress.

It is in these circumstances that we recall our most cherished beliefs, in that parliaments and parliamentarians are the repositories of the trust of all people, with the task to keep Governments as true servants of the people.

All of you will know that the Latimer House Principles of 2003 – drafted with the CPA’s help and also that of the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association – are an integral part of the body of belief which the Commonwealth espouses.

They affirm, of course, that the three branches of government may be mutually dependent – but so, too, that they are independent.

And when countries have flouted them, they have flouted our most cherished values, and faced consequences.

For instance, when Pakistan was suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth in November 2007, this was done in part because the executive’s dismissal of the judiciary in that country was a clear breach of the Latimer House Principles.

Soon after I became Secretary-General, it was my great pleasure to see Pakistan reverse this, and to welcome it back to our councils.

Likewise, the full suspension of Fiji in September 2009 was closely related with the dismissal of the judiciary, along with the jettisoning of the constitution.

And when we see creative tension between the three branches – as, for instance, we currently do in the Maldives, now a vibrant multi-party democracy – we must at least welcome the fact that we are seeing evidence of boundaries being drawn and defended.

The Commonwealth remains a partner for all – and the foundations of our Principles should be held firm.

Our Principles should be held sacrosanct.

The culture of parliamentary democracy defines this Commonwealth, and at every turn we reaffirm it.

We are tenacious in defending it, but so too are we affirmative in supporting our members’ efforts to strengthen it, and indeed sometimes to return to the democratic path when they have strayed from it.

**3**

A democratic sketch – CHOGM 2009

It was the spirit of critical affirmation which was seen at the last Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in November 2009, with the formal endorsement of the appropriately-named Trinidad and Tobago Affirmation of Commonwealth Values and Principles.

This Affirmation was in part a compendium of the existing body of Commonwealth democratic belief of 40 years ...

... from the Singapore Declaration of 1971, to those of Harare in 1991 and Millbrook in 1995, and to the Latimer House Declaration itself of 2003 and the Aberdeen Agenda (where we set out our principles on the primacy of local government) in 2004.

But it also pointed the way forward.

It strengthened those beliefs, and raised the bar.

That CHOGM was also the setting where Heads of Government accepted Rwanda as the 54^th member of this association, and the CPA will formally receive the Rwandan parliament amongst its membership later this week.

Here, again, was another act of Commonwealth democratic affirmation.

Rwanda, ‘the land of a thousand hills’, has climbed remarkably since its darkest days in 1994, not least in leading the world in the women in its parliament.

By the same token, it and the Commonwealth knew then and know now that it has many more hills to climb, and the Commonwealth walks with it.

Just as the independent observer group raised significant concerns about the lead-up to the country’s presidential elections in August, it recognised the peaceful and purposeful way in which they unfolded on polling day.

The Commonwealth stands ready to partner Rwanda in strengthening its electoral practice and culture.

This task of strengthening electoral procedures was another result of the last CHOGM, which approved a new network of Commonwealth election commissioners, which was recently launched in Accra.

In effect they were endorsing a form of comprehensive peer support to each other in conducting elections which will win the trust of all citizens: a giant step forward for the Commonwealth.

We have the highest hopes that the idea will be epochal, in progressively shaping a commonly agreed ‘gold standard’ for the conduct of elections.

We believe the network can share all our best practice in areas like voter registration, universal mobilisation of electorates, polling practices, security oversight, media policy, the use of public funds in election processes, and all other aspects of creating a fair and level playing field.

We have similar hopes that the Commonwealth can have another gold standard in its midst, in the form of a more effective Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, or CMAG.

The 15-year-old CMAG is, of course, the guardian of what we most cherish.

It has distinguished the Commonwealth from other organisations, both in being able to hold its members responsible and even to suspend them, but also always to hold out to them the hand of support in the restoration of democracy.

Many of you will know that CMAG has suspended five countries in its 15 years: Nigeria, Pakistan and Sierra Leone sought to return and did so; Zimbabwe sadly walked away; and Fiji – despite our best efforts and, indeed, our ongoing attempts at dialogue – remains suspended.

The CMAG, too, received a boost at the last CHOGM, when Heads of Government asked us to look at how we can strengthen it within its existing mandate to consider serious and repeated violations of the Harare Principles in member states.

In the task of reforming itself, the Group has started to scope out what this new mandate means, and how it can refine the process whereby it engages itself.

So we do envisage a wider scope of CMAG activity.

The Group would no doubt wish to reinforce its image as a body which engages and encourages, as well as censures when it must.

There are other institutions the Commonwealth builds, which will be applauded by democratically elected parliaments, such as national human rights institutions, but this brief sketch has, I hope, given not just a painter’s outlines of our Commonwealth democratic belief, but some of the detailed brushwork too.

**4**

A democratic sketch – the role of Parliaments

And how does it relate to the particular role of parliaments themselves, as guardians of our democracies?

Here, the CPA is recognised for doing its own detailed brushwork – in applying form to the outline of our democratic values.

We appreciate the advice it has given to the Commonwealth Secretariat in choosing parliamentary members of our Commonwealth election observer groups.

I cite another good example of partnership in thanking it for co-organising our pioneering and significant Government and Opposition workshops, which have worked towards embedding a true belief in the value of a constructive Opposition across the Commonwealth.

I am pleased to say that another seminar is currently being planned for Asia, and thereafter we plan one on your doorstep here in East Africa.

It was my predecessor Chief Anyaoku who once bemoaned the fact that there is, on this continent, a very limited cultural concept of a ‘loyal’ Opposition, as an integral and respected element of politics, working in the national interest.

Our communal task is to work against this polarisation of political ‘friend’, and ‘foe’.

We also pay tribute to the painstaking, behind-the-scenes work which is the basis of any good parliament, and which is the CPA’s bread and butter.

In the last three years, it has run eight orientation courses for newly elected MPs.

Perhaps here we can add a special word of appreciation for CPA-UK, which takes advantage of being deep in the belly of the beast in Westminster to offer an impressive array of support programmes.

Not only does it bring parliamentarians to the four national assemblies in the UK and the regional European one in Brussels: it also sends out on assignment UK MPs and parliamentary staff, to offer assistance to Commonwealth parliaments on four continents.

Indeed, I read last week of staff from the Guyanese Parliamentary Committee Division coming to London for training, and I know too that in August a clerk and three parliamentarians from London were invited to advise on committees and administration by the speaker of the parliament of Botswana.

Distinguished colleagues, the task is to empower parliaments and parliamentarians – which means giving them belief in their own function, and which also means giving them the wherewithal to do their job.

Capacity-building and administrative support is never glamorous, but any parliamentarian will surely tell you that it can make the difference between success and failure.

I refer to the role of parliamentary clerks and researchers; the availability of libraries and research sources; the computerisation of parliamentary business; the effective running of parliamentary committees, be they Public Accounts Committees scrutinising the use of funds, or subject-specific committees scrutinising policies, programmes and expenditures.

These were the stuff of a report which we submitted to the Ugandan parliament in recommending improvements in 2006 – and they are the stuff of the CPA’s and national parliaments’ work now, and in the future.

The Commonwealth headquarters, as you well know, are based in London, not even a mile away from the oldest elected legislature in the world, with its roots in the 13^th Century.

As with all organic growth, that particular legislature is still evolving, and it offers various lessons to other Commonwealth countries.

It is fair to say that its recent expenses scandal has been a sobering experience for it, and for the British electorate.

Meanwhile the quality and the quantity of its back-up go unnoticed, but ensure that it can offer the highest standards of scrutiny.

The things which it takes for granted – for instance, the confidence it can place in its administrative staff’s ability to provide an a-political brief – are in demand elsewhere, and that is why all our communities are called upon to share ideas and expertise wherever they can.

**5**

The theme: ‘Parliament and Development’

So let me, in these last few minutes, try and turn some of these thoughts towards your chosen theme of ‘Parliament and Development in the 21^st Century: thus far and beyond’.

I make no excuses for having ranged so broadly to get to this point, and for making just a few comments now, in the knowledge that you will discuss this further yourselves.

First, the Commonwealth is clear that we must avoid false dichotomies between democracy and development.

Because Parliamentarians, as guardians of democracy and holders of their peoples’ trust, are also guardians of development – the two are ‘of a kind’, organically linked and inter-twined, and mutually reinforcing.

A seminal Commonwealth report on democracy and development in 2003, produced by a team led by Dr Manmohan Singh, the present Indian Prime Minister, argued that democracy and development are two sides of the same coin, and that they reinforce each other.

Human development, it said, is manifested not just in areas like health and education and economic empowerment, but also in the development of the human person through the guarantee of human rights and democratic choices and freedoms.

Development will henceforth be measured in terms of the Millennium Development Goals, with their targets of poverty reduction, schooling, gender equality, child, maternal and adult health, and environmental sustainability.

The MDGs, as we know, have five years to run, and we struggle to meet them.

This morning, Honourable Speaker Marende quantified the grim challenge before us, and spoke, too, about the centrality of the Commonwealth’s women and the Commonwealth’s young people in that task.

Even without the transformations we have seen since 1990 in India and China, great gains have been made in the pursuit of these Goals.

But still – particularly in swathes of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa – they remain unmet.

And with global populations growing so fast, and estimated to reach 9 billion by 2050, they threaten to remain so.

As I speak, my other Deputy Secretary-General, Ransford Smith, is preparing to address the MDG Review Summit which takes place in 12 days’ time at the UN in New York.

He will speak on behalf of all our member states, and their combined needs, and he will also relay the messages which came out of Commonwealth Health and Women Affairs Ministers Meetings which happened in May and June.

Let us remember the essence of the ‘development deal’ which has unfolded since the Millennium Summit, the Monterrey Summit, the Gleneagles summit, and other points after and in between.

It was the core understanding that the developed world undertook to support the developing world through a combination of aid, debt relief, investment and trade liberalisation and facilitation – while the developing world committed to prioritise and plan its own development path, and to promote efficiency, opportunity, transparency and accountability in the way that the path was travelled.

If parliament is the representative of its people, it must be passionate about Development and the MDGs, and be at the epicentre of national and global debate.

It will recognise the stresses created, particularly in small and vulnerable economies, by a series of economic crises and by the need to show democratic solidarity in achieving collective goals, and in exercising the wisdom function so desperately needed today, to embrace the entire world in the solutions we seek.

For this reason, Governments cannot develop national and global development strategies without vigorous examination in their parliaments; and governments should invest resources with fastidious scrutiny from parliament, in terms of transparency and outcomes.

**6**

A robust parliament: Kenya

I close by giving an example of an empowered and supported Parliament at the centre of national debate and life.

I look no further than our host nation today, Kenya.

The realisations – in the appalling aftermath of violence at the last presidential elections in this country – were that division was quite literally deadly, and that unity was the only hope.

Kenya – hitherto seen as something of a beacon of democracy and development in Africa – had to rebuild a reputation.

What transpired was a coalition government – however large – which means, in fact, that there is no official opposition, and which also raised the prospect that the executive could overshadow the legislature.

But that is not what has happened.

The parliament has been integral to the rebuilding of Kenya, and the realisation of its democracy and development dreams.

Speaker Marende and Clerk Gichohi can take particular credit for that.

The parliament has taken a strong line in scrutinising the budget.

And just as it had pushed for, and then passed, the Constituency Development Fund Act in 2003, it has pushed hard for probity in the management of those funds.

It brokered the work on drafting the historic new Kenyan constitution which was voted in just a few weeks ago; and as a result of it, it will grow by introducing an upper chamber, and it will be stretched to the limit of its capacity in passing new legislation.

It saw partnership as the key to Kenyan success – an all-embracing coalition of the willing.

I am pleased to add that ‘the willing’ very much includes the Commonwealth, which will provide legislative drafters to develop aspects of the new Constitution, as I agreed with Attorney General Amos yesterday.

We will also use our existing networks of both national election commissions and national human rights commissions, to support those two new bodies in this country.

All in all, I believe I am describing an empowered parliament, attuned to planning and scrutiny, focussed on delivering democracy and development, and answerable to the people who elected it.

Let it be food for thought for two organisations – one just over 60, and another nearing 100 – which need to ask again, how best they can strengthen their impact, their networks and their profile, and share their ‘Common wealth’.

I wish you all well in your gargantuan and inspiring task.

ENDS