Author: Ryan Baldry, Senior Communications Manager

This year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda was held with the theme of ‘Delivering a Common Future: Connecting, Innovating, Transforming.'

Although the forum itself receives less attention than the traditional forums of the UN, G7 and NATO, it is still an important gathering of 56 sovereign states which are home to 2.5 billion people including both advanced economies and developing countries.

So what were the key outcomes from this year’s Summit in Kigali?

• Gabon and Togo have officially joined the Commonwealth despite no historic links to the United Kingdom.

• The Living Lands Charter: A Commonwealth Call to action on Living Lands (CALL), which commits all member countries to safeguard global land resources while taking coordinated action on climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable land management.

• The Declaration on Sustainable Urbanisation and the Kigali Declaration on Child Care and Protection Reform were adopted.

• The Commonwealth Blue Charter Project Incubator was launched today on the margins of CHOGM. This new initiative will support Commonwealth ocean states in cultivating and scaling-up projects that protect the marine environment while also tackling climate change.

• Kenya and Eswatini were named as the new Champion Countries to lead Commonwealth action on geothermal energy and energy literacy, as part of the Commonwealth Sustainable Energy Transition (CSET) Agenda.

The Leader’s Communique can be read in full here.

Samoa will be the host of the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2024.

Cover Image Courtesy of The Commonwealth