Commonwealth Secretary General, Rt Hon Patricia Scotland KC, has pledged the Commonwealth Secretariat’s full support to Sri Lanka as the country navigates difficult challenges.Speaking at an event in Colombo, on Friday, the Commonwealth Secretary General said she arrived in Sri Lanka to let every Sri Lankan know that they are not alone while the island nation continues to feel the weight of political and economic pressure.
“I know that Sri Lanka continues to feel the weight of political and economic pressure. The pressure can be hard to bear. It can be destabilizing, isolating, and frightening, and I am here because I want every Sri Lankan to know that you are not alone in the nature of the challenges you face. You are part of this special precious Commonwealth family,” Scotland said, addressing the Inaugural Lecture for Geopolitical Cartographers.
The Secretary General, Scotland, is in Sri Lanka at the invitation of the government to attend the celebration events for the 75th Independence Day, in Colombo, marking the significant anniversary.
The Secretary General gave a lecture at ocean think-tank, the Geopolitical Cartographer, on the Commonwealth’s role in facing ‘Polycrisis’ – the term given to the current set of linked factors causing global instability.The Geopolitical Cartographer was held under the patronage of President Ranil Wickremesinghe at the Colombo City Centre.
Speaking further, the Secretary General said Sri Lanka was not alone in facing the fallout from a host of interconnected global pressures, like spiraling costs, energy shortages and the effects of climate change.Nevertheless, the Commonwealth, as a collective of 56 countries, is working together to lend support and help member states work towards a more prosperous, sustainable and secure future for all, she said.
“As a family we have responsibility for one another. A duty to each other, a shared love and a shared journey and you are not alone, like the challenges you face.”
She added: “Where we can face the challenges of the world as a family, we build proud, connected nations: each with the confidence to stand tall, but each with the perspective to know that we are at our best when we work together.
“Sri Lanka is not simply part of this work, you are central to it.
“I travel all around the commonwealth and the wider world and whilst every country and its direct experience and circumstances are different, they are similar challenges everywhere and you may feel that you are living in a country under pressure, but the reality is that we are all living in a world under pressure. All of us are tightly bound by a tangled knot of crisis-spanning global systems. A world living with the social political and economic consequences of COVID-19,” she said.
Speaking at the session President Ranil Wickremesinghe said, the first person to be invited and to come here for Independence Day celebrations is none other than the Secretary General of the Commonwealth.
“She has been a good friend of Sri Lanka, a good friend of Asia, and Africa and she represents our thinking. But there’s also another reason for her, the Commonwealth to be here. When we got independence, we first joined the Commonwealth. Our entry to the UN was blocked. It was only in 1955 that we became a member of the United Nations. But, from the beginning, we have been with the Commonwealth. It was only correct that the Secretary General of the Commonwealth should be here on our 75th Anniversary of Independence. You were there when we got independence and you are here now. So it is to mark that occasion as she was invited here by the government to take part in the 75th Anniversary of our Independence,” the President noted.
Sri Lanka is a founding member of the Commonwealth, who has been heavily involved in the Commonwealth Secretariat’s work on climate. It is a lead member and champion of the Commonwealth Blue Charter Action Group on Mangrove Ecosystems and Livelihood, and is also a member of the Commonwealth Blue Charter Action Groups on Marine Protected Areas, Ocean Acidification, Ocean and Climate Change, Commonwealth Clean Ocean Alliance, Ocean Observation and Sustainable Coastal Fisheries.
Sri Lanka was involved in the first pilot of the Coastal Risk Rapid Assessments – a project which measures a nation’s climate and ocean-based risk level to help inform policy and decisive action.