Ghana elected member of Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group

Ghana and eight other countries have been chosen to reconstitute the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group for the next two years.

The eight other countries are Australia, Bangladesh, Jamaica, Maldives, Namibia, New Zealand, Vanautu and Trinidad and Tobago that would act as Chair. The countries were named at the end of the three-day Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting (CHOGM) on Sunday in Port of Spain, the capital of the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago.

President John Atta Mills together with 33 other Heads of State and Governments participated in the biennial Meeting that was on the theme "Partnering for a More Equitable and Sustainable Development."

Forty-nine out of 53 countries constituting the Commonwealth attended the Meeting.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the Danish Prime Minister attended the meeting.

High on the agenda was the issue of climate change and the meeting organised a special session on climate change and issued a declaration.

The Port of Spain Climate Declaration welcomed the initiative mooted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the establishment of a $10 billion Copenhagen Launch Fund next year to address adaptation to climate change with focus on most vulnerable areas.

A 117-point communique touched on the political situation in Belize, Cyprus, Guyana and Zimbabwe.

On Zimbabwe, the meeting welcomed the Global Political Agreement on power-sharing and expressed the hope that this would be implemented faithfully and effectively and looked forward to conditions being created by Zimbabwe to return to the Commonwealth.

Other areas tackled were food security, proliferation of small arms, the global financial meltdown, education, gender and health, the youth and bridging the digital divide.

The leaders accepted the offer from Australia to host the 2011 CHOGM as well as offers from Sri Lanka and Mauritius to host the 2013 and 2015 respectively.