Let’s deepen collaboration, ensure peace, create opportunities - Interior Minister to Commonwealth States

Minister for the Interior, Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak, has called for the deepening of collaboration among Commonwealth member states to ensure peace and also create opportunities for prosperity in member states.

He also said that cooperation in education, trade, health and technology must be strengthened to sustain the community that had existed for more than seven decades.

Mr Mohammed-Mubarak added that nation-building and international agreements were complementary facets that advanced prosperity and upheld shared values.

He was speaking at the commemoration of the 74th Commonwealth Day and Flag-raising ceremony in Accra yesterday, on theme: “Unlocking opportunity together for prosperous Commonwealth.”  

Recognition

Mr Mohammed-Mubarak said the event must honour generations who sacrificed and transformed painful legacies into a network of nations built on mutual respect and shared ideals.

“Their courage laid the foundation for a community that seeks not only cooperation, but also friends.

We also celebrate the strength, resilience and aspiration of Ghana, and we acknowledge the importance of meaningful cooperation with partners across the Commonwealth,” he said.

The minister further urged members states to ensure the organisation moved beyond rhetoric to building partnerships that protected the vulnerable, empowered women and the youth, including investing in sustainable development and ensuring a just economic system.

He reiterated the call for acknowledgement of historical injustices, and support of ongoing global conversation on reparative justice.

Mr Mohammed-Mubarak reaffirmed the government’s commitment to Commonwealth's ideals and a future anchored in peace, prosperity and progress.

Diversity

In a statement delivered on behalf of the Head of the Commonwealth, King Charles III, by the UK High Commissioner to Ghana, Christian Rogg, he said the organisation must take steps to exploit the untapped potentials of communities for prosperous trade among member states.

The King underscored the community’s remarkable diversity and unity in shared values, adding that nearly two-thirds of the Commonwealth’s population was under 30, therefore, there was the need to ensure young people inherited a world where they could flourish.

He said member states must also work together to tackle realities of climate change that it faced, including protecting the environment.

“Across so many parts of our Commonwealth, climate change is not an abstract or distant threat, but a lived reality.

“The stewardship of nature, the protection of oceans and forests, and the pursuit of prosperity secured in harmony with the natural world are duties we owe not only to one another, but to generations yet unborn,” the King said.

Unity

The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, in a speech delivered on her behalf by the Head of Mission of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CWEIC), Dr John Obeng Apea, called for unit among member states.

She said unity among members states would ensure stability, resilience and prosperity for member states.

Ms Botchwey also urged the organisation to stand firm for democratic principles and climate action, emphasising that the ideals and values of the Commonwealth were the most powerful when they were lived.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General expressed confidence in multilateralism grounded in shared values, citing the energy and ingenuity of Commonwealth people as a driving force for transformation and shared prosperity.