Report warns that Commonwealth risks becoming irrelevant

As leaders of the Commonwealth gather in Port of Spain for their summit this week, a new report commissioned by the Royal commonwealth Society warns that the group is seriously out of touch and will become irrelevant unless it undergoes radical change.

The document, which was commissioned to mark the society's 60th anniversary, is likely to take some of the sheen off the meeting that begins Friday in Trinidad.

It was prepared after painstaking research involving surveys of tens of thousands of people worldwide, including policymakers and former heads of government in the 53 member states.

The results present an unflattering picture of a once powerful and prominent alliance that is today a poor shadow of its former self, fading into irrelevance by geopolitical alliances such as the Group of 20.

The report says fewer than one third of those surveyed was able to name something the Commonwealth has done and policymakers were unable to say if the group has a strong voice in international relations.

And it suggests that while the network of Commonwealth nations and societies has done some good work its voice and identity on the international stage have become muffled and diffused.

The report urges the Commonwealth to get tough against human rights abuses or attacks against democracy, as have occurred in nations including Zimbabwe, Fiji and Sri Lanka.

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, one of the authors of the report, said leaders do not take the Commonwealth as seriously as they used to.

''Without enthusiasm from presidents and prime ministers to use the Commonwealth to find shared solutions to common problems, its great potential risks being wasted,'' he wrote.

Fraser said the Lusaka Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 30 years ago that paved the way for Rhodesian independence and the creation of Zimbabwe might be remembered as one of the great successes but in reality Zimbabwe is one of the Commonwealth's greatest failures.

''No one predicted that the country to which the Commonwealth gave birth would end up leaving the fold in 2003. A number of Commonwealth leaders have been quietly involved in Zimbabwe over the years, but the Commonwealth itself could have been more influential and arguably did not marshal its resources early enough or adequately enough.

''The slow road to recovery that we are now witnessing in Zimbabwe shows that it is high time for the Commonwealth to engage proactively with the Government of National Unity," Fraser wrote.

The report's authors are likely to try to get leaders to debate the future of the Commonwealth at this week's summit and identify a new path and role for the Commonwealth if it is to survive and thrive.

They believe the report will likely ruffle some feathers, but hope that it will also be received with the same constructive spirit that started the process of self-examination.

The authors say the report presents a wake-up call that they hope will lead to real action.

They say it would be "hugely disappointing if having engaged tens of thousands of people on the future of the Commonwealth, our findings are then ignored by leaders in Trinidad."

Read the report