Latest content: Environment and climate change

Commonwealth Secretary-General invites 20 young Bajans to join youth climate action initiative

Foreign Affairs Ministers from across the Commonwealth met yesterday for the 21st annual Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers Meeting (CFAMM). The meeting was held virtually for the second year in a row due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Commonwealth Observer Group (COG) deployed to The Bahamas to observe the 2021 General Election has released their statement on its preliminary findings on the election stating the overall process was “credible, inclusive, and transparent.”

Though living standards and human capital have improved across the predominantly rural archipelagic nation of over 80 islands since its 1985 induction into the Least Developed Country (LDC) category, Vanuatu remains extremely vulnerable due to high exposure to disasters and low coping capacity.

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Ahead of COP26, the Commonwealth Secretariat yesterday in collaboration with the University of Cambridge Research Centre of Resilience and Sustainable Development launched phase two of the ‘Our Action, Our Future’ project aimed at helping guide much-needed policy change to empower youth in Small Island Developing States.

Yesterday, 20 world-class experts from around the Commonwealth joined two virtual consultations focussed on how to help attract sustainable finance for investment in youth and biodiversity in SIDS.

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The following blog is based on a speech the author presented to the UK-Pacific High Level Dialogue on Climate Change in July 2021, which has been adapted and updated for this website.

<em>A blog by Christine Awiti, Economic Advisor, Commonwealth Secretariat</em>

The Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has spoken today urging the international community to make crucial changes to how it delivers finance to developing nations, proposing a new system that moves beyond the use of GDP as the sole criteria for receiving certain types of support.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has urged member countries to integrate sustainable land use management into their national climate action plans, with a focus on nature-based solutions, on the road to the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 this November.