(Commonwealth)—The Commonwealth Secretary-General made opening statements at the 25th Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers Meeting (CFAMM) on 22 September 2025 at United Nations Headquarters, New York. She had addressed the meeting with the highest respect for the first time as Secretary-General to warmly welcome Samoa‘s Deputy Prime Minister, Hon. Toelupe Maoiautele Poumulinuku Onesome, on behalf of the Chair-in-Office, and the foreign ministers who are with us for the first time. She thanked Samoa for the leadership that it has shown and commended Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa for her role as chair of the Commonwealth.
Speaking from her experience when she was a foreign minister, the Secretary-General appreciated the enormous burden that the participants had carried. She restated her gratitude for their acknowledgment of the challenges they encounter in defending national interests, managing global uncertainty, and leading their peoples wisely and humanely. The encounter, she said, is occurring at a moment of historic global dislocation with crises that reinforce and intersect one another. War is still a parasite on peace and stability throughout most of the world, while economic vulnerability, debt pressure, and supply-chain disruption beset the household and the state. Climate change has shifted from a possible future to a current reality, with record temperatures, floods, fires, and crop losses stretching to several member states. Democratic institutions are under pressure, institutional trust is declining, and polarization and disinformation are undermining governance.
The Secretary-General continued by emphasizing that these interconnected challenges are border-crossing in nature, making individual solutions or retreating from cooperation impossible. Despite facing significant challenges, the multilateral order continues to be the world’s most promising solution, and its preservation is crucial to prevent further global transgressions. She reaffirmed the Commonwealth’s leadership on those principles, recalling that well before modern disruptions to the rules-based world order, such as the imposition of tariffs to prevent the world from developing, member states ratified the need for a more cohesive and robust global system.
Her vision for the Commonwealth is rooted in the belief that, in a conflicted and divided world, the organization must be distinguished by coherence and purpose. With 56 nations on five continents and a third of all mankind, most of whom are young, the Commonwealth does have some merits. It encompasses some of the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies and some of the weakest and smallest nations. Institutions of democracy, language, and law in common, and reduced transaction costs and levels of trust among members, offer both functional depth and overtime.
The Secretary-General laid out a forward-looking agenda of priorities for future work. She envisaged a Commonwealth that reinforced and reinvigorated democracy by making it relevant to people’s lives. Trade, investment, innovation, debt relief, and concessionary finance must propel transitions towards economic transformation, transitions with special sensitivity to the vulnerable and small states. Climate transition action must be at the forefront, and the organization must mobilize finance and technology to lead a revolution in renewable energy and to release business opportunity. Youth and women need to be at the frontline of development and supported by radical education, business and skills, more distance learning, and science, technology, engineering, and math opportunities for young women.
She indicated recent successes in the organization’s ministerial conferences on health and trade matters that resulted in productive and realistic outcomes. With this achievement, she ushered in future conferences and Heads of Government Meetings to be more focused, result-driven, and effective, with practical solutions aimed at building resilience and common prosperity. Recommendations to restructure the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and policy on new membership were put forward to capitalize on heightened interest in membership in the organization. She also suggested coming to the CFAMM program and facility to allow as many ministers as possible to attend and perhaps adding on to host a retreat in London in March 2026.
To drive her words home, the Secretary-General reminded that the Commonwealth can be the world’s best international organization, second only to the United Nations. Given the severe testing of the UN, she urged member states to seize the opportunity to expand collaboration, unite in solidarity with shared values, and provide solutions to the pressing issues facing their citizens.
