27th Annual Marlborough Lecture - ‘The Commonwealth at 60 – serving a new generation’

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Thanks, introduction

Thanks to

• Nick Maurice – a Commonwealth man, as a Director of BUILD, a coalition of international agencies which promotes development links and exchanges ….
• … and also the President of our hosts tonight, the Marlborough Brandt Group – powerful advocates of the value of development, and practitioners too ….
• …. which is why we welcome friends from the Muslim fishing community of Gunjur in the Gambia, with whom the Marlborough Brandt Group has had a nearly-30-year partnership. I would like to acknowledge the Alikali (the Mayor) and the Nyansimba (the Head of the Women’s Organisation) of Gunjur who are here tonight…
• We also thank MDG’s co-organisers, the Marlborough branch of Christian Aid
• We thank our hosts at St John’s Community College
• We thank a contingent from Marlborough College
• We thank the Mayor of Marlborough, Nicholas Fogg, and members of the Marlborough Town Council
• … and all who have come here tonight.

I am honoured to be 27^th Marlborough Development Lecturer, and proud to be in a long line of distinguished speakers. I see that my predecessor but one, Chief Emeka Anyaoku of Nigeria, Commonwealth Secretary-General from 1990 to 2000, lectured here in 1993.

I also take curious pleasure in being in the lovely Wiltshire town of Marlborough. Some of you may know that my office is the room in which Sarah Churchill, the first Duchess of Marlborough, died in 1744. Queen Mary died in the same room, in 1953. I think and hope we are slightly more alive in the room these days…

I refer of course to Marlborough House, the royal palace between The Mall and Pall Mall, which has been home to the Commonwealth Secretariat since 1965, and whose foundation stone was laid 300 years ago this year, in April 1709. We celebrated that milestone a few months ago in the presence of the 11^th Duke of Marlborough and his wife, in the magnificent Blenheim Saloon.

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The global and Commonwealth context – in general, in 2009

We meet this evening in one of the most prosperous towns, in one of the most prosperous countries, in the world….

Yet that wider world is not so lucky…

• 1 billion of its 6 billion people live in dollar-a-day poverty: they have an annual income of less than $365
• 3 billion people live in two-dollar-day poverty, with an income of less than $730….
• There are over 190 member states in the UN, and we estimate that there are well over 50 chronically ‘fragile states’ within that number, accounting for one-seventh of the world’s population, and one-third of its poverty.

Within the Commonwealth itself ….

• something like 750 million are beneath the poverty line
• 70 million children are out of school – 30 million from primary school, and 40 million from secondary
• Nearly 30 million people are HIV positive, largely but by no means exclusively in sub-Saharan Afrcia
• In all this, women suffer disproportionately: two-thirds of those below the poverty line, and two-thirds of those who can’t read or write, are women; half a million women die every year in childbirth (there is a 1-in-13 chance of doing so in a country like the Gambia, and a 1-in-500 chance in the UK); and the face of AIDS is not that of a middle-aged man, but of a young woman aged between 16 and 24.

We live in a globalised and interdependent world, in which the bad things of violence and disease cross borders as easily as the good things of commerce and culture.

We are one world – facing many challenges – and the only way to respond is collectively.

And the collective need is ever greater, because those challenges have become considerably worse in 2009.

• In the last 12 months, the world has experienced severe food shortages – with food thereby costing much more – and civil unrest the result. We call it the crisis of food security.
• In the last 12 months, the price of energy, particularly that of oil, has gone dramatically up and then dramatically down. We call it a crisis of fuel security.
• In the last 12 months, while you may be conscious of economic difficulty in this country: it is as nothing to the cool 10% wiped off global output this year, and the 100 million additional people now living below the poverty line because of very hard times. We call it a crisis of financial security – 26 of our 53 members will experience negative growth in 2009.
• Add to this, the greatest crisis of them all. The finance, food and fuel crises are short-term and fixable: the environmental crisis is long-term, and if it isn’t fixed, our very existence is threatened. Gordon Brown talked last week about the very real dangers of flooding in the UK: that is small fry when you think that Commonwealth small islands like the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, or Kiribati or Tuvalu in the Pacific Ocean might go, quite literally, under water. You have read about flooding in Bangladesh, thawing tundra in Canada, encroaching desert in Namibia and Nigeria, extreme drought in Kenya: nowhere in the world is immune for danger.

This is the world of troubles which is our context tonight. I never start lectures such as these with the Commonwealth; I always start with the context. For we in the Commonwealth are creatures of our world and of our members, and our task is to respond to the challenges of the world, and to the needs of our member countries and their individual citizens.

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The Commonwealth at 60, part 1:

1949; the four pillars 1949-2009

So this, then, is the context for a lecture entitled: ‘The Commonwealth at 60 – serving a new generation’. I need to show you that the Commonwealth has been and is facing the challenges of its times – and in particular tonight I would like to do so by focusing on what it is trying to do for young people.

I wonder how many of you in fact knew that the Modern Commonwealth is 60 years old?

You might ask where ‘the British Commonwealth’ fits in to this equation; and you might reasonably presume that the Commonwealth is significantly older than the 60 years which we celebrate this year.

Yes, the roots of the Commonwealth go back to the middle of the 19^th Century, but the British Commonwealth came to an end in 1949, largely in the wake of Indian independence. The leaders of the eight original countries came to London that year, with the very real possibility that the organisation might fall apart, if each of the members was supposed to accept the British monarch as their Head of State, when - in the case of India - they had only just dispensed with him. After three days of far-sighted, brave and accommodating negotiation, a new organization was born – ‘freely and equally associated’, in the terms of its founding document – and accepting the British monarch (or anyone they subsequently chose) as the symbol of their union.

So in my view the first genuine and voluntary international community was born.

I do not propose to chart its every move over 60 years, other than to show, very briefly, the evolution of the Commonwealth of four things: of values; of its times; of the vulnerable; and of partnership.

We are the Commonwealth of values, committed to democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and the rights of our citizens to social and economic development.

Since we first set them down and committed to them in 1971, we have progessively strengthened those values with new declarations and new commitments.

Further, we have established a group of Foreign Ministers, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, which deals with persistent violations of our most treasured principles. If the Commonwealth suspends its members, it does so in sorrow, and with the commitment to return a country to the fold.

In 15 years, it has partly or fully suspended Nigeria, Pakistan, Fiji, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe. For a while, it watched the Gambia closely. Of those suspended, Fiji remains so on account of the military overthrow of a democratically elected government in 2006. And Zimbabwe chose to walk away from the Commonwealth after we made strong public criticisms of the conduct of its 2002 presidential elections.

We are the Commonwealth of our times, moving with the challenges before us.

In the 50s and 60s, we led the move towards decolonization and supporting newly independent states, and then the fight against racist rule, particularly in southern Africa.

In the 70s, we launched a major programme of technical assistance to support our member states.

In the 80s and 90s, we pioneered the notion of forgiving developing countries their debts: a Commonwealth idea, launched at our Finance Ministers Meetings in 1987 and 1997, is now a global fact worth over $100 billion. We were also ahead of the curve on climate change, with our work in the late 80s providing the blueprint for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit declaration.

In this new century, we have broken new ground in launching global best practice in the recruitment of teachers and healthworkers from the developing world, to the developed.

We have also been at the forefront of the fight to save our fracturing world – in the wake of 9/11, the UN asked us to develop model anti-money-laundering and extradition laws, while at the same we brought out ground-breaking research as to the cause and the solutions of the faultlines in our societies.

We are the Commonwealth of the vulnerable – first and foremost, tending to those who need us most. 32 of our 53 members are small states of less than 1.5 million people, and alongside the World Bank we pioneered the science of small sates – faced as they are with unique threats and vulnerabilities, but blessed as they are with unique strengths and resilience. As I will tell you later, we were the first international organisation to set up a youth programme. Likewise we set up a gender programme largely to promote the status of women, with activities to match – promoting women’ interests in education, health, enterprise, politics, and more. I have told you that half of the world’s population – the female half – bears considerably more than half of its problems.

And finally, we are the Commonwealth of Partnership – always inclusive, always cooperative, always looking to benefit not just our own citizens but also those of the wider world. It is why our numbers have grown from 8 to 53 in 60 years. It is why we are more than an association of governments: we are an association of peoples, with a huge network of civil society or non-governmental organisations, all of which feed into our governmental business. It is why we work very closely with other bodies – from the UN and its agencies, to regional bodies like the Caribbean Community or the Pacific Islands Forum or the African Union, to linguistic groupings like La Francophonie, and even to individual countries like the US, whom we visit in places like the State Department every time we are in that country on UN business.

So we are the Commonwealth of values; the Commonwealth of its times; the Commonwealth of the vulnerable; and the Commonwealth of partnership.

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The Commonwealth at 60, part 2:

2009, CHOGM

Where does the Commonwealth stand, at 60 years old, in 2009?

In a year in which – as I have said – our members need us more than ever? It has been another busy year, of political and economic drama.

One particular highlight of this year has been the fact that our Commonwealth message of inclusiveness has been embraced all over the world, and especially in the fora which most need to adopt it – the G20 and the G8. The Commonwealth was active behind the scenes and at the year’s meetings in London, Aquila and Pittsburgh, and the message was clear – that every country in the world needs a place at the table, and a voice that is heard. We often say that the G20 constitutes 90% of the world’s economic power, but only 10% of its countries. Just listen to President Obama or many other international statesmen, and you will hear a new tone of collective responsibility, and gain a sense of the richer countries being the trustees of the interests of the poor.

At the end of November, the Commonwealth meets in Trinidad. We descend on those islands in force – as well as Heads of Government, there will be meetings of Commonwealth Foreign Ministers, and the major events that are the Commonwealth Youth Forum, the Commonwealth People’s Forum for its civil society organisations, and the Commonwealth Business Forum. The small Caribbean island will receive some 10,000 extra visitors in a busy week – perhaps 1,000 of whom will be from the media, in the Caribbean region and beyond.

What can we expect from that meeting? What might those media report? Let me point very briefly to three things, and then – to close – expand on one of them, with special focus on so many in the audience tonight – the Commonwealth’s ‘new generation’.

First, the world will look to the Commonwealth in Port of Spain on the issue of climate change. We will be meeting just one week before the UN climate change conference which – it is no exaggeration to say – can play a major role in deciding the fate of the world. Now the Commonwealth cannot negotiate Copenhagen in advance. It cannot make firm commitments to percentage cuts in CO2 emissions. Yet it can speak passionately to the entire world, as a 53-nation block. It can stress the environmental responsibilities of countries both rich and poor, and the responsibilities of rich countries to the poor, not least in giving them the funding and technology to become cleaner and greener. The Commonwealth can also give a practical lead. When Heads last met in 2007, they launched our own Commonwealth action plan – which has seen us very active, for instance in helping developing countries to negotiate at the world table, and in practical measures like guaranteeing insurance pay-outs for small countries devastated by natural disaster.

Second, in Port of Spain you might see a new Commonwealth member, and a renewed commitment as ‘the Commonwealth of Values’. Rwanda has submitted a formal application to join the Commonwealth, which will be considered at the Meeting. You may be surprised to see a country with no link to the UK, and with only a percentage of its people speaking English. But no doubt you know that Mozambique and Cameroon joined the organization in the 1990s. This is the dynamic Commonwealth of the 21^st Century, which countries wish to join, to strengthen their own democratic and development credentials and prospects, and their place in the regional and global community. Rwanda is only 15 years away from a brutal civil war which took nearly a million lives in three short weeks – it has come a very long way, and it is clear that it has much further to go. The Commonwealth is about journeying – we all journey together. That is why it is also likely that we will pull all of our previous statements of principle together into one new body of belief, to carry us forward on that journey – perhaps with Rwanda, and perhaps with other countries in the future, too.

Third, I believe that CHOGM 2009 will repeat and refresh the Commonwealth’s commitment towards its young people – the people who will inherit this association in the 21^st Century – the people like you here in the audience tonight. Let me draw to a close with a few comments about the Commonwealth and young people, before we break for questions. I would be delighted to discuss anything I have said tonight – or indeed the many other issues which I have not been able to touch upon. (2570)

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The Commonwealth at 60, part 3:

young people – ‘serving a new generation’

We are a young Commonwealth: half of our 2 billion or so people are under 25, and a quarter are under 5. The definition of a young person in international development terms is one under 30 – so, many of you in this room have longer to stay young than perhaps you think….

You are a new generation, and your Commonwealth is very different from that of your predecessors. Some of them would have known an empire, or would have known much closer ties between Britain and its former colonies. The world you inhabit is transformed from that of even 20 years ago. The old polarities of East and West and North and South are gone, or going. Technology and the media have transformed lives. The power of the state has been wrestled away – both by the power of business and by that of what we call civil society.

So for the ‘new generation’, there are neither the certainties nor the relationships of old. But some things persist, and perhaps one of those is a reluctance to invest in young people, to give them a voice, and to see them as the resource that they are.

In our hearts, I think, the debate is won. We cherish the flower - not the blight - of youth. We believe that young people will lift us up, not draw us down. They embody our hope, in a sea of anxieties. But our hearts are not talking to our heads: if we believe these things, our response is not commensurate. With one billion young men and women entering the workforce in the period 2000-2015, do we still see youth as a ‘resource’? Or a ‘drain’?

Neglecting young people is not an option in a rapidly changing world. The effects of globalisation, positive and negative, flow above all through young people. If today’s challenges are to be solved, they will be solved by today’s young people: they are the greatest contemporary agents of change and of transformation. Issues such as climate change, HIV/AIDS, energy security, terrorism and crime – these are young people’s challenges, to which they must help find the solutions. I believe passionately in the empowerment of young people.

So does the Commonwealth. In 1974, it was the very first international organisation to establish its own standalone youth programme, with a standalone budget. It also established regional centres around the Commonwealth, in Guyana, Zambia, India and the Solomon islands.

Since then, we have set up thousands of youth businesses, and disbursed hundreds of thousands of pounds in loans. We have trained thousands of youth workers, with a well-known Commonwealth Diploma in Youth Development which is on offer in all but 10 of our member countries. A network of 500 Young ‘Commonwealth Ambassadors for Positive Living’ is at work across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean: brave young men and women - all HIV-positive - who counsel their peers about safe sex. Further, we work with governments themselves: helping to create official national youth policy in 40 of them, and national youth councils in 30.

Yet how much further we have to go, in a world where so many young are marginalized, disaffected, or denied the basic opportunity to work and make a living. The horrible fact is that young people make up a quarter of the global working-age population, but account for very nearly half of its unemployed. Last year, we held our Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting in Colombo, Sir Lanka, where teenagers and young adults constitute 60% of the unemployed in that country. Worse still, 60% of those young unemployed have passed their Ordinary Level exam, or hold higher qualifications. We are seeing a strangling - a suffocation - of potential.

The Commonwealth has to fight for its youth, on every front. It has to put them in the vanguard of meeting their own challenges. That is why our Pacific office is a global leader on youth-led research; the Caribbean centre is the same for youth work education and training; the Asia one sets world standards on youth governance; the African one in Zambia leads on young people’s responses to HIV/AIDS, while a further African centre (in Northern Uganda), is a global leader in ways of reintegrating young people – whether former child soldiers or child victims of war – back into society. We take young people on each of our Commonwealth election monitoring missions; we involve them in all of our consultations on areas like climate change and rebuilding broken societies.

You, ladies and gentlemen, and particularly the younger among you, are our most important constituents.

We may be proud of these achievements for the young Commonwealth, but with nearly 75 million young people out of work across the world, we cannot be complacent. So we may reasonably ask what change can be brought about for young people when Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in five weeks time in Trinidad?

For a start, the Heads will meet young people face to face. This is a new venture, and an important one. Heads have a total of some 10 hours with each other in private retreat, but for one hour they will meet members of the Commonwealth Youth Caucus from five continents. The younger will speak passionately to the older, and the latter will listen. And some of the ‘old’ are not so old: Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Dominica in the Caribbean, is only 37, and was himself once a Minister for Youth.

Second, they will speak as one in a political statement, akin to the one that we hope will emerge on climate change. These declarations are more than words – they are commitments, and they are the bedrock of shared accountability. You will remember Colonel Gaddafi tearing up the UN Charter in New York at the General Assembly a few weeks ago. In doing so, he was in fact affording it the importance it deserved.

I think the Heads of Government will go further in Port of Spain. They will be brave enough to challenge the completeness of their own commitment to their young people, by asking for more help in their youth work. A Youth Department or Ministry is not enough. There needs to be a youth angle – and policy, and budget – in every sphere of national life – in politics, in enterprise, in health, the environment and more. We call it ‘mainstreaming’. I am hoping that Heads will ask us in the Secretariat to prepare for them a ‘youth mainstreaming’ template, as to how best to achieve this.

I am also hopeful that they will put political and financial weight behind a new venture to promote youth enterprise in the Commonwealth. I mentioned our Commonwealth Youth Credit Initiative, which is remarkable not least in the percentage of loans which are paid back within 12 months: the figure is over 95%. My hope is to see it get bigger and better – involving governments themselves, international financing institutions, regional bodies, and of course big businesses which have not just a funding but a policy role, in being responsible citizens and nurturing young talent within their communities. There is £600,000 already committed by the State Bank of India to support youth entrepreneurship, and my hope is that much more will follow from CHOGM.

Only yesterday did I first see the draft of a new Commonwealth publication which we will give to leaders in Port of Spain. It is a detailed study of how young people enter the job market, and in particular it acknowledges the fact that – for want of other opportunities – they wish to set up their own small enterprises. It gives suggestions, for instance, of how young people can channel entrepreneurial skills into the issues of the day – like renewable energy, or rural development, or water and sanitation.

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Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Commonwealth at 60, ‘serving a new generation’.

Young people are its partners, its participants, its resources, its inheritors. They are its future, and its hope. And in turn they want it to be relevant to them and their needs.

Perhaps some of you will assume leadership roles in this Commonwealth of values, this Commonwealth of its times, this Commonwealth of the vulnerable, this Commonwealth of partnership.

Consider the powerful words issued by the Commonwealth Youth Caucus on World Youth Day this year, on 12 August. ‘We are the inheritors of the actions of those who came before, and the innovators who can rectify the consequences’ …. ‘too often governments and inter-governmental organizations offer excuses not to involve and support young people’ … ‘there can be nothing that is truly for us without us’.

And then consider Emmalin Pierre, 28, the former Commonwealth youth representative from Grenada, who is now Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, with responsibility for Youth Development. Or Ahmed Mahloof, 27, the former Commonwealth youth representative from Maldives, who is now an MP.

Whether you find your fulfilment in public life, in business life, or in private life: that is our hope – that in finding your fulfilment you will help others find theirs. Then you, too, will be ‘serving the new generation’.

Thank you.

ENDS