The Commonwealth

The Commonwealth

The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 56 independent and equal countries. It is home to 2.5 billion people, and includes both advanced economies and developing countries. 33 of our members are small states, including many island nations. Our member governments have agreed to shared goals like development, democracy and peace. Our values and principles are expressed in the Commonwealth Charter.

The Commonwealth Secretariat is the intergovernmental organisation that supports member countries to achieve the Commonwealth’s aims of development, democracy and peace. It publishes authoritative, evidence-based research and knowledge products for policymakers, academics, professionals and wider publics across the world. Our areas of focus and expertise include small and developing states; environment and climate change; democracy, law and government; and social issues concerning young people, gender, health and education.

Judicial Resource Book on Violence Against Women for Asia

Niaz A. Shah

The Judicial Resource Book on Violence Against Women for Asia deepens our understanding of the forms of VAWG and raises awareness of the role that the judiciary can play in tackling them. It can be used by judicial officers and other professionals to promote justice and fairness in the judicial process for women who have been victims of violence.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291750
  • Publication Date: Mar 2018
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Small States Economic Review and Basic Statistics, Volume 20

Small States: Economic Review and Basic Statistics is a flagship publication of the Commonwealth Secretariat highlighting the development indicators of small states and disseminating knowledge on their economic performance.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291774
  • Publication Date: Apr 2018
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

A Handbook for Gender-Inclusive Elections in Commonwealth Africa

A Handbook for Gender-Inclusive Elections in Commonwealth Africa: Achieving 50:50 by 2030 reviews the systems, legislation and best practice that will need to be implemented and effectively monitored to get more women into politics and help to realise Sustainable Development Goal 5 – achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291781
  • Publication Date: Apr 2018
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Key Principles of Public Sector Reforms

Joan Nwasike

This book contains case studies from Cameroon, Ghana, Grenada, India, Kenya, Rwanda, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania and Trinidad and Tobago on the policy reforms, strategies and methodologies that support national priorities and greater policy coherence for sustained development and growth.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291811
  • Publication Date: Aug 2018
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

The Economic Cost of Violence Against Women and Girls

A framework to assess the economic cost of violence against women and girls that captures linkages and secondary effects to assess the full impact of VAWG. Data gathered will be useful for reporting on SDG5 and SDG16, assess national statistical systems, and measure progress across all of the SDGs in a manner that is inclusive and fair.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291873
  • Publication Date: Jul 2019
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Least Developed Country Transition

Jodie Keane

Progress made in the Least Developed Counties (LDCs) in the Commonwealth will contribute to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To this end, this book identifies areas in which international support measures could be improved to reduce economic vulnerability in Bangladesh, Mozambique and Solomon Islands.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291910
  • Publication Date: Mar 2020
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Cybersecurity for Elections

The use of computers and other technology introduces a range of risks to electoral integrity. Cybersecurity for Elections explains how cybersecurity issues can compromise traditional aspects of elections, explores how cybersecurity interacts with the broader electoral environment, and offers principles for managing cybersecurity risks.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291927
  • Publication Date: May 2020
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Overview of Youth Development in Ghana

This book makes recommendations for how Ghana can mainstream youth issues in its development strategies, providing baseline evaluations of socio-economic issues that particularly affect the youth demographic, such as underemployment, a lack of access to quality education and poverty.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291972
  • Publication Date: Apr 2021
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Alternative Development Strategies for SIDS

Kris Terauds

This Economic Paper builds on the 2014 SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action Pathway, which provides guidance on economic, environmental and social priorities in small island developing states. It offers detailed analysis and guidance on alternative economic development strategies and recommends policies to build competitiveness in new industries.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291989
  • Publication Date: Jul 2021
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Commonwealth Trade Review 2021

Commonwealth Trade Review 2021, 'Energising Commonwealth Trade in a Digital World: Paths to Recovery Post-COVID', presents empirical findings of the impact of the pandemic and proposals to boost trade recovery and resilience, by harnessing digital technologies, post-Brexit trading opportunities, and promoting sustainable green and blue economies.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291996
  • Publication Date: Jul 2021
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Economic, Social & Cultural Rights in Practice

Yash Ghai

Examines the record of jurisdictions in which attempts have been made at judicial enforcement of economic, social and cultural rights. Contributions provide insights into the methods, specificity, and limits of judicial enforcement.

  • Imprint: Interights Publishing
  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781869940270
  • Publication Date: May 2004
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Making Markets for Vaccines

Ruth Levine

Making a commitment in advance to buy vaccines if and when they are developed would create incentives for industry to increase investment in research and development. New commercial investment would complement funding of research and development by public and charitable bodies, accelerating the development of vital new vaccines for the developing world. This report presents the proposal from theory to practice, by showing how a commitment can be consistent with ordinary legal and budgetary principles. By creating arrangements that devote the same scientific effort to diseases of the poor as we put into diseases of the rich, we can make a lasting contribution to the defeat of poverty.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286020
  • Publication Date: Apr 2005
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Short of the Goal

Nancy Birdsall

Failed states are at greatest risk for collapse and pose an urgent threat to international security. Yet, ironically, new U.S. foreign assistance programs such as the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) routinely bypass these poorly performing countries, while providing increased aid to so-called good performers. This volume provides a lucid account of failed states that are ineligible for this new assistance, thus residing "on the other side of the MCA." The first part analyzes U.S. policy toward the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Indonesia, Yemen, Myanmar, and Central America in order to examine the fundamental causes of poor performance. The second part examines the role of specific U.S. policy instruments in building state capacity to prevent deterioration and collapse. Uncovering one of the most recognizable, yet poorly understood, trends in the developing world, Short of the Goal sets an important agenda for increased American engagement with failed states to promote both development and security in the developing world.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286051
  • Publication Date: May 2006
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Inexcusable Absence

Maureen A. Lewis

Girls' education, indisputably crucial to development, has received a lot of attention--but surprisingly little hardheaded analysis to inform practical policy solutions. In Inexcusable Absence, Maureen Lewis and Marlaine Lockheed propose new strategies for reaching the 70 percent of out-of-school girls who are "doubly disadvantaged" by their ethnicity, language, or other factors. The book will be an important tool for policymakers, informing interventions that can make a profound impact on the lives of the 60 million out-of-school girls.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286143
  • Publication Date: Dec 2006
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Fair Growth

Nancy Birdsall

Until recently, students of development have put much more energy into understanding the causes and consequences of absolute poverty than of inequality. But globalization—with its new opportunities for winners and losers, and its new insecurities and competitive pressures—is changing that. Nowhere is the issue of inequality more worrying than in Latin America, the setting for many of the world's most unequal societies. This book presents a dozen ideas or "tools" meant to make life in Latin America more equitable and fair for the great majority of its people. It suggests policies and programs for making tax structures more progressive; giving small businesses a chance; protecting labor mobility and workers' rights; tackling corruption head on; and raising the levels of quality, efficiency, and equity of the education systems. Change and reform in the direction of greater fairness will require not only political leadership and technical know-how on the part of government officials and legislators, but support and input from the progressive business community, the increasingly effective and vocal civil society, and students and intellectuals.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286167
  • Publication Date: Jan 2008
  • Availability: Temporarily out of stock: Usually despatched in 14-18 days

Exclusion, Gender and Education

Maureen A. Lewis

Girls have achieved remarkable increases in primary schooling over the past decade, yet millions are still not in school. In their previous book, Inexcusable Absence, Maureen A. Lewis and Marlaine E. Lockheed reported the startling new finding that nearly threequarters of the girls who are not in school belong to ethnic, religious, linguistic, racial, or other minorities. In this companion volume, they further analyze the determinants of school enrollment, completion, and learning in seven countries: the highly heterogeneous populations of Laos, China, Pakistan, India, and Guatemala and the homogeneous populations of Bangladesh and Tunisia. The authors find that in ethnically and linguistically diverse populations, minority groups—minority girls in particular— lag significantly behind the majority population in school attendance, while highly homogeneous populations like Bangladesh and Tunisia have successfully integrated girls into school on a par with boys. By increasing understanding about the major impediments to universal primary education, Exclusion, Gender and Education provides valuable new knowledge to those who are working to bring gender equity to the education systems of poor countries.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286228
  • Publication Date: Oct 2007
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days