Challenges

Developing countries across the Commonwealth face numerous challenges and barriers to improving their trade and investment environments, accessing new economic growth opportunities and providing high quality employment to current and future generations. 

In the short and medium terms, these barriers include rising food and energy prices, supply chain and logistics disruptions, ongoing debt concerns and lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as low vaccination rates and the prospect of new variants and outbreaks. Among Commonwealth countries, least developed countries and small states are highly impacted by these challenges given their often heavy economic dependence on the services sector and existing structural issues and vulnerabilities.

The Commonwealth draws membership from every geographic region and level of development of the world, imparting on the association a unique role in supporting global growth, creating employment and facilitating the sharing of best practices and learnings among its diverse membership.

Commonwealth members are already closely linked through familiar administrative and legal systems, similarities in business, commercial and legislative practices and through large and dynamic diaspora communities. These linkages can provide tangible commercial benefits for traders and investors in Commonwealth countries.

Toward a Solution

Experience sharing and peer-to-peer learning can be an effective way to address some of the challenges noted above. The Commonwealth Connectivity Agenda (CCA) was launched in 2018 as a platform for countries to exchange best practices and experiences on trade and investment and to support technical assistance and capacity building for reform. CCA dialogue and initiatives are structured around five clusters: physical connectivity; digital connectivity; regulatory connectivity; business-to-business connectivity; and supply-side connectivity.

CCA builds on the advantages of the Commonwealth by providing a platform to support structured dialogue, networking and collaboration on trade and investment. Engagement takes place across institutions, regulators, policymakers and businesses and facilitates learning from other member countries’ experiences, the sharing of knowledge and ideas and the realization of common development goals.

The CCA is guided by the principles that cooperation efforts should:

• be pragmatic and practical, leading to credible results;
• consider the needs of small and vulnerable economies and least developed countries;
• avoid duplication of initiatives that other organizations are already implementing;
• add value in areas of engagement; and
• adopt a progressive approach towards a long-term vision for closer trade and investment ties.

Using a bottom-up approach, Commonwealth members initially undertook national consultations on priority areas of the CCA Declaration and opted-in to cluster(s) of interest. The focus then shifted to peer-to-peer exchanges and pan-Commonwealth action to address challenges and opportunities across the five clusters, with progress examined during Commonwealth trade minister meetings. 

The consensus priorities identified by members across the five clusters are described below.

• Digital connectivity would focus on supporting the development of national digital economies, led by South Africa and the United Kingdom. 
• Physical connectivity would support identification of best practice in digital infrastructure development, led by The Gambia.
• Regulatory connectivity would focus on improving regulatory regimes to support trade and investment, led by Barbados.
• Supply-Side connectivity would focus on facilitating the participation of all member states in global value chains, with a focus on agriculture and fisheries, led by Vanuatu.
• Business-to-Business connectivity would focus on supporting public-private dialogue to ensure the views of the private sector are kept at the centre of Commonwealth members cooperation, led by Bangladesh.

In delivering these workstreams, a three-pronged approach was agreed by member states to increase institutional capacities and support policy reform in these work areas, whereby the CCA would: 1) convene member states through an open, multisectoral and platformed cluster approach to technical working groups; 2) equip policymakers with evidence and tools, including technical papers, private and public sector surveys, policy tools and case studies written by government policymakers for government policymakers; and 3) provide advisory services to member states to support the implementation of lessons learned through policymaking and regulatory reform, and facilitate cross-regional policy exchanges.

Guided by the CCA Action Plan, 80 interventions have been delivered since 2019, 68 of which are complete and 12 are ongoing. Highlights of the interventions are:

• cross-regional knowledge transfers on how digital technologies can enhance infrastructure operations and capacity (participants were The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, New Zealand, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom);
• capacity building on how to devise policy tools to promote micro, small and medium enterprise integration in agribusiness value chains through policy experience sharing (participants were Malawi, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu); and
• peer-to-peer learning exchanges on private sector development and business environment improvements (participants were small island developing states in the Pacific and Africa). 

CCA’s initiatives collectively contribute to SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) and SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure) through innovative, digitally-oriented approaches for experience sharing and peer-to-peer learning between developing Commonwealth member countries. The Agenda is creating sustainable, replicable and adaptable work programmes that can be scaled across all regions of the Commonwealth. 

By engaging through the Commonwealth Connectivity Agenda, member countries are mainstreaming inclusive and sustainable trade as a cross-cutting issue while recognizing the importance of integrating small, vulnerable and least developed countries into the world economy, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.