1. Introduction

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Acknowledgements

The contribution that Commonwealth-accredited organisations make in advancing the values and principles in the Commonwealth Charter is a key pillar of the Commonwealth system. To better understand and recognise the contribution accredited organisations make, and the value they add in addressing the shared concerns that bind the Commonwealth of Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Innovation and Partnerships team commissioned this first-of-its-kind independent study to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Commonwealth Charter, which serves as the anchor and guide for all accredited organisations. This study is the beginning of a longer-term process to build a systematic and evidence-based understanding of the collective contribution and impact of accredited organisations. The study is also intended to draw attention to the potential of accredited organisations to play an even bigger part in supporting Commonwealth countries and empowering Commonwealth people in the future to overcome a growing and complex range of socioeconomic and environmental risks.

The Commonwealth Secretariat commissioned a project to assess the collective contribution of Commonwealth-accredited organisations in advancing the Commonwealth’s broader goals. The project came on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Commonwealth Charter (‘the Charter’) and provided a moment to take stock, with a view to building on strengths and improving future collaboration.

The Charter was seen as a means of assessing accredited organisations’ contribution to the Commonwealth. Since 2015, the criteria for accreditation have been linked to the Charter and when organisations report on their annual activities to the Commonwealth Secretariat, they are asked about the ways they might have contributed to the Charter’s particular clauses. While regular annual activity reports are required from individual accredited organisations, there had been no concerted attempt to assess the collective contribution that they make to the Commonwealth.

From the outset, this project has understood the Commonwealth to be an institution, comprising and shaped by many actors

(organisations and individuals), each with varying capacities and degrees of influence on the system. The commissioning of the study was an acknowledgement that the sum of the Commonwealth is more than its intergovernmental parts. The Commonwealth is an institution that comprises many constituents. Among these are the 87 organisations that are accredited to the Commonwealth. This project was conceived as an assessment of the collective contribution of the network, rather than a report card on individual organisations.

The assorted 87 organisations are diverse and can be grouped per Commonwealth Charter clause. This was part of the brief. A listing of the organisations (as of June 2022) grouped using an approximation of the particular Commonwealth Charter clause their primary goals suggest is included on Page 9. An informal distinction is sometimes made between those that are exclusively Commonwealth focused and those that have recognised the Commonwealth as a means of advancing their global advocacy ends.

A minority of the organisations are relatively well endowed. The majority operate on annual budgets of less than £50,000, but they all ‘punch above their financial weight’. Not all of them identify as civil society organisations. There is also a subgrouping referred to as ‘associated organisations’ (AOs). These have a reach and structure that are governmental, quasi-governmental or represent other governance institutions, including parliaments and legislatures. The AOs derive their mandates from their memberships and have received high-level political endorsement from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) over the years.1

1 The following organisations identify as AOs: Commonwealth Association of Tax Administrators (CATA), Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF), Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), Conference of Commonwealth Meteorologists (CCM), Conference of Postal Administrators (CCPA), and the Commonwealth Education Trust (CET).

The project was designed with a view to providing insights to help Commonwealth intergovernmental bodies and accredited organisations align their strategies and partnership plans and to better serve member countries. It was also seen as a resource for member countries, which themselves may have questions about the contribution of accredited organisations. The brief did not include the development of recommendations. Where conclusions or observations can be made based on evidence, these are highlighted in bold text.

This project is a first-of-its-kind attempt to collate and quantify the collective contribution of accredited organisations to the Commonwealth. The mixed-method approach that underpins this study relies heavily on the annual activity reports that are submitted by individual accredited organisations to the Commonwealth Secretariat, as required by the Commonwealth’s Accredited Guidelines. Currently, there are no indicators, definitions or an agreed set of variables that might establish what that collective contribution may be. In turn, this means that there is no baseline against which a collective contribution can be gauged. This project can help initiate an inclusive discussion on what those benchmarks might be in the future.

While being cognisant of the fact that the methodology and data underpinning this study are not complete or perfect, this study builds a comprehensive picture of the ways that accredited organisations contribute to the modern Commonwealth. This was done by reviewing the reports filed by accredited organisations, inviting written submissions, and interviewing people that represent organisations or who have worked with them.

This report starts by defining terms and then recapping recent discussions about accredited organisations within the Commonwealth system. It then focuses on the Commonwealth Charter, looking at each of the 16 clauses and identifying how organisations are making a difference in advancing them. The report then reflects on the broader contributions that accredited organisations are making to strengthening the Commonwealth. The report concludes by placing accredited organisations in the context of a contemporary Commonwealth renaissance. The project has drawn on the goodwill of Commonwealth colleagues and these are acknowledged together with the assumptions that were made during the conduct of this work.

Project Approach

It was determined that the project be conducted in a participatory and consultative manner. To this end, the principal stakeholder groupings were identified. These included the accredited organisations themselves, while a Project Advisory Group (PAG) was constituted to provide insights and act as a sounding board for this work. The PAG was designed to represent the diversity of accredited organisations in terms of geographical representation and sectoral interest.

Engagement with members of the PAG yielded the following observations on the project:

• it should seek to capture the undocumented and unquantified aspects of Commonwealth accredited organisation (CAO) contributions to the Commonwealth system;

• it should highlight the interactions between CAOs and Commonwealth ministerial meetings;

• it should flag the ways in which CAOs derive resources from outside the Commonwealth system;

• it should highlight ways in which CAOs innovate as they address challenges and constraints;

• it should show the ways that organisations (from different sectors) collaborate around particular themes (e.g., gender equality); and

• it is an ambitious programme of work and support will be needed to deliver its outputs.

The consultant attended the conference organised jointly by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, the Commonwealth Association, the Commonwealth Foundation and the Round Table (Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs) held on 27 May 2022 entitled ‘Is the Commonwealth Working?’ This featured a session on the Commonwealth’s networks.

The consultant also reviewed documents provided by the Commonwealth Secretariat, namely:

• The Guidelines for Accreditation to the Commonwealth (current as at 10 May 2022); and

• The Commonwealth Secretariat Partnerships Strategy (July 2018).

The consultant was primarily desk-based and took into account the views and perspectives of the diverse stakeholders and organisations that are members of the family of Commonwealth accredited organisations.

To animate the process of review, key informants were interviewed. Care was taken to ensure that these represented the diversity of accredited organisations: from those that are modestly resourced to those that are relatively well resourced; from those that have a civil society ethos to those that are closer to the state; from those that have been long associated with the Commonwealth to those that are relatively new; and from those based in the United Kingdom to those based in other Commonwealth countries.

The process also made provision for interviews with people who had worked in the Commonwealth system (for intergovernmental organisations) with accredited organisations. Finally, the project engaged with High Commissioners to the United Kingdom with an awareness of the accreditation process to gauge how Commonwealth member countries view accredited organisations. Each of the people interviewed agreed to participate as individuals not representing their employer or any other organisation.

Accredited organisations were also invited to make written submissions to the review. These inputs resulted in the identification of case studies for inclusion in the study.

In terms of key milestones, the draft final report was first presented to members of the Project Advisory Group. In turn, the draft was widely shared among the community of accredited organisations. The consultant received further written inputs from accredited organisations and these were considered before a final version was submitted to the Secretariat in February 2023.

The project period was punctuated by the Heads of Government Meeting, which was held in Kigali from 20 to 26 June 2022. While this preoccupied the entire Commonwealth Family, CHOGM 2022 provided an opportunity to showcase the work of CAOs and provided fresh insights from those that may not have participated in Commonwealth processes before.

This project has demonstrated that 20 years on, this remains the case. There are areas of Commonwealth activity where accredited organisations can and are leading the way, leveraging the Commonwealth brand and advancing the Charter.

2. Definitions

It is often said that the Commonwealth is an association of peoples as well as states. It is further asserted that the non-governmental Commonwealth predates the intergovernmental Commonwealth. The focus of this project is the domain of organisations that are not intergovernmental and yet attached to the Commonwealth because they have submitted to a process of accreditation. This requires that they individually:

• Commit to the Commonwealth’s fundamental values and principles (as embodied, inter alia, in the Commonwealth Charter).

• Represent the true diversity of Commonwealth countries (e.g., in their governance and by demonstrating that they are active in at least three of the four Commonwealth regions). This does not apply to regionally accredited organisations.

• Demonstrate accountability and transparency (e.g., by reporting to their members and submitting annual reports for the Accreditation Committee).

• Are open to all Commonwealth members (i.e., open to eligible individuals, organisations or associations from other Commonwealth member countries).

• Have a track record (i.e., have been active for at least two years).

These criteria are set out in the Guidelines for Accreditation to the Commonwealth and the list of organisations accredited to the Commonwealth is listed on the Secretariat’s website.

This project does not refer to this body of 87 organisations as ‘Commonwealth civil society’. This is because some of those organisations do not recognise themselves as civil society organisations (either because their governance includes a governmental or parliamentary presence or because they do not identify with the advocacy activities often associated with the term ‘civil society’ in a Commonwealth context).

This project identified with the term ‘Commonwealth Family’. This can be traced to the 2002 Coolum Declaration in which Heads of Government stated:

We call on the many intergovernmental, professional and civil society bodies which help to implement our Commonwealth values, to join with us in building closer Commonwealth ‘family’ links and strengthening consultation and collaboration. We are convinced of the need for stronger links and better two-way communication and co-ordination between the official and non-governmental Commonwealth, and among Commonwealth NGOs [non-governmental organisations]. This will give Commonwealth activities greater impact, ensuring that every programme produces lasting benefit.

The language of ‘family’ acknowledges the existence of a common bond – perhaps distant, taken for granted and hardly ever referred to explicitly. It also speaks to the ways that members of the family come together for a common cause – particularly in times of crisis or in response to a particular thematic need. The imagery of a family also allows for the existence of rivalries and tensions between members as they compete for the attention of those with influence or for scarce resources.