Sri Lanka Hosts First Commonwealth Meet

CHOGM 2013 about challenges and chances

When people look back to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in Sri Lanka in 2013, many of them – mostly in Colombo where rehearsals for the major international event were conducted – remember their city being choked with inordinate traffic jams.

Yet, CHOGM 2013 was both a challenge and an opportunity for an island nation that had fought a violent and bitterly contested civil war for nearly three decades.

And since its controversial if welcome end to the protracted hostilities in May 2009, Sri Lanka had been struggling to protect, restore and maintain its image globally in the aftermath of the conflict, fighting as it was a series of rearguard actions in international forums where it was under fire from sections of its diaspora.

So the summit level meeting of the Commonwealth’s 54 member states would bring with it a panoply of opportunities for a nation state struggling to recoup the sociopolitical and economic losses of a 26 year war, as well as position itself as a modern country on the cusp of transformation from postwar chaos into a post-conflict society with restored confidence in its systems being enjoyed by all stakeholders.

In this respect, Sri Lanka was thought to have two advantages – namely, relative policy consistency and broad governance structures, which would drive post-conference investment prospects.

This was important as the host country would (as was traditional with CHOGM) assume the mantle of Commonwealth leadership until the next summit in 2015.

And in the light of the Commonwealth Business Forum (CBF) – an agglomeration of business leaders from developed and emerging markets, seeking trade and investment promotion opportunities – accompanying CHOGM 2013 to Sri Lanka, these perceived strengths were paramount.

So if only the host country could project the same convincingly enough at the second largest summit meeting to be held in the island (the biggest was the Non-Aligned Movement’s 1976 conference hosted by Sri Lanka), it could avail itself of the projected US$ 2 billion investment opportunity arising from factors typically favouring the home nation – in fact, CBF 2011 in Perth had seen Australia ‘seal the deal’ to the tune of 10 million dollars!

On top of CBF 2013 – themed ‘Partnering for Wealth Creation and Social Development: the Commonwealth, Indian Ocean, Pacific and SAARC’ – Sri Lanka would also host the 9th Commonwealth Youth Forum (CYF9) where a formal inauguration of the Commonwealth Youth Council (CYC) would kick-start the first general assembly of the CYC and position this island nation to host the World Conference for Youth scheduled for May 2014.

If only the host country could project the same convincingly enough at the second largest summit meeting to be held in the island … it could avail itself of the projected US$ 2 billion investment opportunity