Latest content: Trade and economy

The Secretariat’s Country Evaluation Series aims to respond to member countries’ need for evidence-based reporting on how countries are benefiting from the programmes and actions of the Secretariat. They seek to validate reported results and identify emergent outcomes due to the Secretariat’s actions.

This report presents the findings of an assessment of the Secretariat’s engagement with Jamaica since financial year 2017/18. This is one in a series of country reviews conducted by the Secretariat in the current strategic period and the first of the Secretariat’s support to Jamaica.

The Commonwealth’s next trade advantage will not be built on paper. It will be built on trust: trusted digital systems, modern legal frameworks, secure data and the ability of our 56 member countries to move goods, services, finance and commercial information across borders with speed, certainty and confidence.

Paperless Trade 2.0: Quantifying the Commonwealth’s Trade Advantage builds on the Commonwealth Secretariat’s 2022 analysis and brings new data, deeper modelling, regional and income-group analysis and practical case studies from across our membership. It moves the case for paperless trade from broad principle to clear evidence and from evidence to action.

The study examines the impact of moving towards paperless trade across the Commonwealth, from 2025 to 2030. In order to do so, the study considers observed DTF values between 2019 and 2025 to predict future progress, giving more weight to recent years while still accounting for earlier trends.

This paper supplements the Commonwealth Model Mining Feasibility Study Guidelines by providing the conceptual underpinnings and governance frameworks required for their consistent interpretation and use.

These model guidelines set out how governments can use feasibility studies to ensure that mining projects are responsibly planned and sustainably managed, and provide community benefits and investor confidence.

How can countries navigate fiscal pressures while still nurturing the potential of their young people? How can we design economic frameworks that are both responsive today and transformative for tomorrow? This publication draws on the latest findings from the Commonwealth Youth Development Index to offer a clear, data-driven picture of where progress is being made – and where it is at risk.

This report provides a comprehensive assessment of trade-related regulatory frameworks – covering both conventional and digital domains – across seven Indo-Pacific economies: Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Fiji and Samoa. The analysis focuses on identifying regulatory inconsistencies, non-tariff barriers and institutional gaps that hinder cross-border trade, with the objective of informing a phased roadmap towards regulatory coherence and regional economic integration.