14 March 2022 | Commonwealth.
Today, we commemorate Commonwealth Day, inspired by the theme 'Delivering a Common Future: Connecting, Innovating, Transforming'. This exemplifies the true essence of our family of nations - building and enabling a secure present and a better tomorrow for all our citizens. The opportunity before us is not to solely reflect on this Common Future in general terms, but rather to encourage our organisation to take a path to ensure we all move forward together in peace, stability and security, the very basis for sustainable development.
In these challenging times, our people have had to rely on the strong values and beliefs to face the scary and difficult moments. These are deeply embedded in the Commonwealth Charter. They are there to help nurture resilience in order to surmount the difficult and sometimes long tough experience we go through as we prepare for further obstacles ahead. Covid 19 has been one of the most recent such experiences.
Today, Seychelles and its people also celebrate the extraordinary partnership that the country has with the Commonwealth, a solid partnership forged over 46 years that has and continues to support our progress towards democracy, good governance, the protection of human rights and nation building.
On behalf of the Government and people of Seychelles, I wish to express our gratitude to Her Majesty the Queen for her wise leadershipas Head of the Commonwealth over the past 70 years. We join the rest of the Commonwealth in paying tribute to the Her Majesty for decades of selfless and devoted service to the Commonwealth, that have overseen the transformation and modernisation of our organisation and seen us through difficult moments.
The next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which will take place in June 2022 in Kigali, will present us with the opportunity to connect and renew our commitments to our Commonwealth values and for us to reflect on and adopt innovative solutions to the challenges affecting us.
The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this year will also serve as an inspiration to the rest of the world, of how people from different nations and communities, can come together to compete, appreciate each other and develop new friendships. Our true strength, after all, lies in diversity, respect and inclusiveness.
In celebrating our bonds, let us build and deliver on this Common Future, for our people and for humanity.
I wish you all and the Commonwealth family, a “Happy Commonwealth Day”!
