CEN­TRE STAGE

I have just touched down in Trinidad for CHOGM. While I am ex­cit­ed about the sum­mit, some of my friends in Lon­don have been jok­ing that CHOGM ac­tu­al­ly stands for Caribbean Hol­i­day on Gov­ern­ment Mon­ey.?

There is a very se­ri­ous point be­hind these jokes: in a time of huge eco­nom­ic up­heaval tax­pay­ers here and around the world will not tol­er­ate an ex­pen­sive talk-shop that does not have mean­ing­ful out­comes.?The T&T Gov­ern­ment has right­ly set the bar high on its ex­pec­ta­tions. In its con­cept pa­per, it ar­gues that CHOGM 2009 is a strate­gic op­por­tu­ni­ty for the Com­mon­wealth "to en­hance its ef­fec­tive­ness and its im­age, and to make a lead­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the res­o­lu­tion of the great glob­al chal­lenges of our time." The thou­sands of peo­ple ar­riv­ing in Port-of-Spain this week have to make this vi­sion a re­al­i­ty.?A per­fect storm of cir­cum­stances is gath­er­ing over Port-of-Spain. Not on­ly is the Com­mon- wealth cel­e­brat­ing its 60th year but the emerg­ing find­ings of the largest ever pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on the fu­ture of the as­so­ci­a­tion are to be pub­lished lat­er this week.?Since Ju­ly of this year, the Com­mon­wealth Con­ver­sa­tion has been gath­er­ing the thoughts, opin­ions and ideas of thou­sands of peo­ple from every re­gion of the Com­mon­wealth.?

Four in­tense months of con­sul­ta­tion have re­vealed an as­so­ci­a­tion that is loved by too few, too of­ten for the wrong rea­sons. Its pro­file is at an all-time low. Less than one-third of peo­ple polled across sev­en coun­tries could name any­thing the Com­mon­wealth does. Take the Com­mon­wealth Games out of the equa­tion, and that pro­por­tion plum­mets to rock bot­tom.?Per­haps even more wor­ry­ing­ly, pol­i­cy-mak­ers from a broad spec­trum of Com­mon­wealth coun­tries seem to have lost in­ter­est in the as­so­ci­a­tion. Asked in what sit­u­a­tion they would reach for the Com­mon­wealth in their for­eign pol­i­cy tool-box, most strug­gled to name any such sce­nario. The Con­ver­sa­tion al­so found that Com­mon­wealth in­sid­ers are frus­trat­ed and dis­il­lu­sioned by the ne­glect shown by mem­ber coun­tries to­wards the as­so­ci­a­tion.?The emerg­ing find­ings of this pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion present sev­er­al clear chal­lenges to the lead­ers ar­riv­ing in Port-of-Spain. The Com­mon­wealth ur­gent­ly needs to raise its pro­file by re­fo­cus­ing on the prin­ci­ples which set it apart from oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies and which could pro­vide a strong man­date for its work.

It must iden­ti­fy its pri­or­i­ties: those ar­eas of work where it can add val­ue in a crowd­ed in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket­place by draw­ing up­on its unique strengths. And it must rein­vest in its peo­ple, sup­port­ing that huge­ly valu­able net­work of civ­il so­ci­ety bod­ies which but­tress the in­ter-gov­ern­men­tal Com­mon­wealth and con­nect it to its grass­roots.?Over the course of the next two years, Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning, as the leader of the CHOGM's host na­tion, will be­come the Com­mon­wealth's chair­per­son in of­fice. The Trinida­di­an peo­ple not on­ly have a huge­ly vest­ed in­ter­est in en­sur­ing this sum­mit pro­duces a mean­ing­ful lega­cy, they are unique­ly well placed to do so. If the Trinida­di­an peo­ple and Gov­ern­ment can in­deed con­vince vis­it­ing lead­ers this week to fo­cus on en­hanc­ing "its ef­fec­tive­ness and its im­age," then this will be the most im­por­tant CHOGM of re­cent times.?Cli­mate change is a good ex­am­ple. This week's dis­cus­sions will be im­por­tant and time­ly, com­ing ten days ahead of the cru­cial Copen­hagen sum­mit. But Com­mon­wealth lead­ers have to tread care­ful­ly here: they can­not af­ford for cli­mate change to drown out all the oth­er is­sues on the ta­ble but they can­not al­so af­ford to ig­nore cli­mate is­sues. CHOGM will not pro­duce a bind­ing com­mit­ment on cli­mate change. But it does rep­re­sent the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty for lead­ers to think about how the Com­mon­wealth could mo­bilise its unique char­ac­ter­is­tics to tack­le this glob­al chal­lenge.

The key will be to find how the Com­mon­wealth can add val­ue. If they seize this op­por­tu­ni­ty to think in­no­v­a­tive­ly about the 60-year-old as­so­ci­a­tion of which they are all part, this will be the most ef­fec­tive way of en­hanc­ing the im­age of the Com­mon­wealth as a true world play­er and not just a talk-shop.?

Peo­ple in Com­mon­wealth cir­cles of­ten hark back to the Lusa­ka CHOGM of 1979 when, in the face of seem­ing­ly im­pass­able ob­sta­cles, Com­mon­wealth lead­ers reached con­sen­sus and paved the way for Rhode­sian in­de­pen­dence. Still to­day, this sum­mit is re­gard­ed as mark­ing a bold and piv­otal turn­ing point in Com­mon- wealth his­to­ry. This CHOGM presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be bold once again. This week, as lead­ers be­gin to gath­er in Trinidad, the Com­mon­wealth once again stands at a cross­roads; the scenery may be dif­fer­ent, but the choice is no less cru­cial. Down one route lies a qui­et re­tire­ment; down the oth­er the well-spring of re­form and a fu­ture bright with promise.

The find­ings of the Com­mon­wealth Con­ver­sa­tion should be wake-up call: long, all-en­com­pass­ing com­mu­niques are not go­ing to cap­ture peo­ples' imag­i­na­tion in Trinidad or else­where. Some­thing needs to be done to build the Com­mon­wealth's pro­file as an ef­fec­tive and valu­able group­ing.?The time and mon­ey in­vest­ed in this week's sum­mit will on­ly bear fruit if the Com­mon­wealth can show clear lead­er­ship in tack­ling glob­al is­sues and de­liv­er mean­ing­ful change. As lead­ers sit down for the meet­ings this week, they need to be ask­ing them­selves what peo­ple will re­mem­ber the Port-of-Spain CHOGM for in decades to come.

Dr Dhanan­jayan Sriskan­dara­jah is the di­rec­tor of the Roy­al

Com­mon­wealth So­ci­ety

www.thecom­mon­wealth­con­ver­sa­tion.org