Commonwealth Secretary-General Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey said on Tuesday the organisation is keen to support Bangladesh in political reforms ahead of the planned general election next year, reports UNB.
"We will be happy to provide the support if Bangladesh requires it, especially the support for constitutional reforms," Botchwey said as she called on Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus at his hotel in London.
Botchwey said supporting member states in harnessing democracy and good governance is one of the key priorities for the organisation in the next five years, said Chief Adviser's Deputy Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad Majumder.
The other priorities are boosting trade and investment and supporting members fighting climate change, she said.
Noting that the Commonwealth is a platform of 2.7 billion people, the Ghanaian national said the annual trade among the member states currently stood around 850 billion USD and that they had a plan to raise it to at least 1 trillion dollars in the coming years.
She said many of the Commonwealth members are affected by climate change, and many of these member countries are small in size.
"We will be trying to help them get access to climate finance," she said.
Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus urged the Commonwealth Secretary General to explore the potential of sports and increase youth engagement among the member states.
"Sports are not just a form of entertainment but a kind of social orientation. We are encouraging sportspeople to become entrepreneurs. Sports can be a good way for the Commonwealth to be remembered," said the chief adviser.
The Commonwealth secretary general said they were going to hold a youth programme in Dhaka this month.
She said 1.5 billion people of the Commonwealth population are young and they were trying to engage them in different activities.
She said they were also planning to revamp Commonwealth scholarships for students, an area that the Chief Adviser said should get priority.
National Security Adviser Khalilur Rahman, Chief Adviser's Special Envoy Lutfe Siddiqi, SDGs Affairs Principal Coordinator Lamiya Morshed, and Bangladesh High Commissioner to the UK Abida Islam were, among others, present.
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