Main priorities and initiatives

Our work focuses on:

• Advocating for the reform of international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. (Commonwealth Heads of Government met in Uganda in November 2007 and called for wide-ranging reform of the Bretton Woods click here for definition institutions. They said that reform should give particular focus to the needs of least developed states, and small states.)
  
  
• Helping countries formulate, negotiate and implement their trade policies
  
  
• Promoting trade facilitation that reduces red tape, costs, and maximises efficiency of administrative procedures and controls governing imports and exports.
  
  
• Diversifying the export base by creating opportunities in new economic sectors rather than relying on one or a few sectors.
  
  
• Strengthening debt management through our debt recording and management system that has so far been implemented in around 54 Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries
  
  
• Promoting and monitoring progress of ensuring gender equality in budgets through reviewing and spreading best practice through the biennial survey of best practice across the Commonwealth.
  
  
• Promoting greater international attention to, and provide support for, the special needs of Small States arising from the constraints of size, their remoteness and vulnerability to shocks Building agreements around improvement and reform of the international aid architecture including the development and implementation of the Accra Agenda for Action on Aid Effectiveness and the UN Development Cooperation Forum in order to enhance the effectiveness of aid.
  
  
• Promoting private investment flows to countries and sectors which do not normally receive significant levels of such flows. We operate to directly support investment through feasibility studies and specific measures to promote access to finance for small and medium sized enterprises.
  
  
• Supporting the development of businesses, including better access to Small and Medium Enterprise financing and managing natural resources. For example, our Commonwealth-India Small Business Competitive Development Programme invites entrepreneurs from across the Commonwealth to learn and share experiences with other businesspeople. Indian businessman Rahul Sanghai, who attended one of these events, compared his experiences to “going to business school for two days”.