The Commonwealth Needs More Movers and Shakers

The Commonwealth is short of imaginative leaders after the outstanding generations of Nehru, Trudeau, Nyerere, Lee Kuan Yew, Mandela, and Manley. Yet more than other international bodies it depends on the energy, ideas and personal contact of the people at the top. Democracy is producing a greater turnover of heads of government, but in this hurried world Commonwealth summits are now down to three days and the leaders are not getting enough time to get to know each other face to face in the way that they did in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Between the 2007 summit in Kampala and the 2009 meeting in Port of Spain (27–29 November), 17 new heads of government have taken over. Yet the association is thriving and growing, especially as the work of its civil society organisations grows apace

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