KIGALI, Rwanda
Leaders of Commonwealth nations were meeting in Rwanda’s capital Friday to tackle climate change, tropical diseases and other challenges deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The summit for Commonwealth
heads of state in Kigali is the culmination of a series of meetings this week
that officials said yielded some success in efforts to improve the lives of
people in the 54-nation association that is home to 2.5 billion people.
The Commonwealth’s member
states range from vast India to tiny Tuvalu. The African nations of Togo and
Gabon have asked to join the Commonwealth despite having no colonial history
with Britain.
The group of nations comprises
mostly former British colonies, and its titular head is Queen Elizabeth II. But
countries such as Mozambique and Rwanda — a former Belgian colony with an
Anglophile leader — previously launched successful bids to join.
Prince Charles is representing
his mother, who at 96 is restricting her official duties. The summit is taking
place at an uncertain time for the British monarchy as well as the
Commonwealth, whose relevance is sometimes questioned.
The bloc faces a new challenge as some member nations discuss removing the queen as their head of state. She is the head of state of 14 Commonwealth realms, but Barbados cut ties with the monarchy in November, and several other Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, say they plan to follow suit.
In his remarks Friday, Charles
said “free” nations can make such decisions “calmly and without rancor.” The
heir to the throne also spoke of slavery and its legacy for Indigenous
communities and others, saying the Commonwealth “must find ways, new ways, to
acknowledge our past.”
“Quite simply, this is a
conversation whose time has come,” he said.
Rwanda’s hosting of the summit
is contentious to some who cite the East African country’s poor human rights
record under Paul Kagame, an authoritarian leader who has been de facto leader
or president since a 1994 genocide.
Other critics are unhappy with
what they see as an illegal and cruel deal with Britain to transfer migrants
thousands of miles to Rwanda. That agreement faces legal hurdles, and the first
group of migrants has yet to arrive in Africa.
World leaders attending the
summit range from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Nigerian President
Muhammadu Buhari. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose leadership of the
Conservative party suffered a heavy blow overnight as voters rejected the
party’s candidates in two special parliamentary elections, is also in Rwanda.
Some meetings on the margins
of the summit reported successes in efforts to address pressing issues such as
managing climate change and deadly diseases.
More than $4 billion was pledged Thursday toward global efforts to accelerate the fight against malaria and other neglected tropical diseases. The money will come from governments, philanthropists and others in the private sector. In addition, pharmaceutical companies donated 18 billion tablets to prevent and treat those diseases.
Observers said the fundraising
marks a significant breakthrough as malaria is a leading killer in Africa.
Dr. Francisca Olamiju, the
head of a non-governmental organization in Nigeria that advocates for the poor,
told The Associated Press of her high expectations for such a big gathering to
bolster campaigns against tropical diseases.
World leaders must “walk the
talk” and mobilize more resources for the cause, she said.
Summit participants also are
urging increased action to curb global warming ahead of a United Nations
climate change summit scheduled to take place in Egypt in November.
Commonwealth governments have been asked to submit their targets for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions by Sept. 23.
At the summit, Commonwealth
leaders are expected to adopt a plan to address climate change, land
degradation and biodiversity loss. The Living Lands Charter aims to achieve
climate goals through a mixture of policy influence, financing, technical
assistance, governance and sharing knowledge across nations.
Some 32 of the Commonwealth’s
members are small states, with 25 of them small islands and developing states
classified as vulnerable to climate change.
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