A TEN-MEMBER ‘Eminent Persons Group’ (EPG) has been established to consider how to make more effective the services of the 54-nation Commonwealth that includes a dozen countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
As announced by Secretary General of the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat, Kamalesh Sharma, a former long-serving diplomat of India, the EPG, which includes two CARICOM nationals, is headed by the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
The two CARICOM nationals are Jamaica’s Patricia Francis, award-winning business facilitator and Executive Director of the International Trade Centre (ITC), an agency of the United Nations; and Sir Ronald Sanders of Guyana, an international consultant, author, columnist and former senior diplomat.
The seven other eminent persons are Dr Asma Jilani Jahangir, a leading human rights lawyer and chair of Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission; Samuel Kayuma of Uganda, interim chairman of  the Commonwealth Youth Caucus; Michael Kirby, retired justice of Australia’s High Court; Graca Machel of Mozambique, a renowned internationalist advocate for women and children’s rights and former Education and Culture Minister of her country; Sir Malcolm Rifkind of the United Kingdom, well known British Conservative politician and former Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs; Senator Hugh Segal of Canada, with some four decades of distinguished public service; and Sir Ieremiua Tabi Kiribati, a current serving parliamentarian of the Republic of Kiribati, complete the composition of the ten-member group of eminent persons.
Secretary General Sharma has explained that the EPG’s establishment was in accordance with a unanimous decision at the 2009 Commonwealth Summit held in Port-of-Spain.
The members have been mandated to “set out decisive recommendations on how to strengthen the Commonwealth and fulfill its potential in the 21st century”.
The intention is that the Group’s work “will aim to ensure that the Commonwealth remains relevant to its times and makes the best use of its networks and partnerships to do so…”
The EPG is scheduled to have its first meeting in London from July 19-20, and is expected to present its recommendations in time for the next Commonwealth Summit which will take place in Perth, Australia, in October 2011.