In these days when multiple international conferences are heavy on the rhetoric and low on the follow-up, the Commonwealth Secretariat, its Secretary-General and incoming host chair, Antigua and Barbuda are determined to make the 1-4 November Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) a turning point for the organisation.
The CHOGM comes at a challenging time for the entire global order. For small states such as Antigua, the Commonwealth continues to provide a lifeline for being seen and heard. For a Secretary-General in the post since 2025, the 2026 CHOGM provides a chance to show what she’s made of. And for King Charles III, Head of the Commonwealth, it’s a chance to try and steer the organisation, and to energise its progressive agenda. Ideally, the journey should go beyond the echoes of empire and into a relatively safe space where reparations and republicanism can be discussed with the volume turned down.
To assess the challenges facing the Commonwealth at its November summit and beyond, the editor of The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies, Prof Sue Onslow, joined forces with the Round Table web editor Debbie Ransome to examine the major issues facing the 56-member organisation in late 2026 and going into 2027.
Part one of this article
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Although this issue is not formally on the Antigua agenda, it will undoubtedly come up in executive sessions, bilateral meetings, and corridor chats. This is an issue which is already energising Commonwealth associated organisations: for example, the Commonwealth of Learning is actively advising a number of Commonwealth ministries of education, at the latter’s request, on the incorporation of AI into education.
During a September lecture at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, the Commonwealth’s immediate past Assistant Secretary-General and the conference secretary of the last CHOGM, Luis Franceschi, suggested that CHOGM 2026 consider forming a team to explore the positive uses of AI to tackle climate, trade and rights issues. Prof Franceschi named Canada, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Malaysia as key players. He suggested that these countries could add their AI expertise to a Commonwealth-powered group working on making AI a force for good.
Professor Franceschi did not elaborate on the idea but recent announcements from the Commonwealth indicate a focus on AI, such as a Nigerian project using artificial intelligence to help smallholder farmers reduce food losses, a similar climate project in Uganda, and the use of AI to strengthen investigations into corruption in Africa and the Caribbean. These all highlight the Secretariat’s use of AI training and backing of AI projects to make an on-the-ground difference.
Migration
Despite the best efforts of the Ramphal Institute’s Commission on Migration and Development (2009-2011) chaired by former Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson, and its subsequent work with the Commonwealth Secretariat to recommend easing visa barriers, the Commonwealth does not have a coordinated strategy on migration. However, like AI, this is one of the key issues of our times – people in the Commonwealth are on the move, as refugees or economic migrants, with or without formal documentation. This is a complex and multifaceted issue, which is also complicating domestic politics, developmental challenges, and international diplomacy, with debates around refugee and asylum regimes, brain drains vs the benefits of remittances, brain gains vs the often unacknowledged social and human costs, anti-immigration rhetoric and xenophobic violence. Although the issue of migration is connected to the challenges of the Commonwealth’s youth ‘bulge’, don’t expect a sudden policy announcement of Commonwealth coordination on this issue, or a return to the Commonwealth citizenship idea. Given the size and complexity of the modern Commonwealth, this is likely to continue to be a bilateral or regional issue among Commonwealth states.
Future of the Commonwealth
Like the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, the Commonwealth was already in trouble before Secretary-General Shirley Botchwey’s election in 2024. The ongoing debate about the future of the Commonwealth has further intensified with the advent of the second term of American President Donald Trump; since then, there has been a lurch into another era of brutal geopolitics, economic bullying with tariffs and blatantly transactional diplomacy, and deliberate refusal to conform to or support the international rule of law. Yet, for the overwhelming majority of small states – and, of course, the Commonwealth is fundamentally a small states organisation in which larger countries and mature democracies are also members [Reference Derek McDougall article 2018] – multilateralism and international law are crucial to ensure that they do not get trampled by aggressive larger states.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has provided much-needed leadership and realistic pushback, starting with his 2025 Davos speech calling for ‘middle powers’ to work together, his determined diplomacy to improve relations with India, outreach to the European Union, and active sponsorship for the Partnership for Multilateralism (P4M) alongside Australia, Barbados, India and Kenya, and Brazil and the European Union at the UN General Assembly in September.
For Commonwealth Secretary-General Shirley Botchwey, facing her first CHOGM in the post, this is a focal point for showing the organisation’s value.
“I truly believe it is the Commonwealth’s moment and we do intend to seize it,” she said during a speech on 21 October at Wolfson College, Oxford. She spoke of the Commonwealth’s “amazing” capacity for reinvention. She said the Commonwealth will help make member countries more resilient and our people become more prosperous and that this was the ambition she would be taking “to CHOGM, the summit and beyond”. “If we succeed and I believe we will, people will feel the difference in their life. We will show a fragmenting world how international cooperation can deliver when it is based on collective interest and not just on national interest.”
Seizing this moment will also require convincing busy heads of government that it is worth their while turning up to CHOGM meetings. The number of attendees and ‘stay aways’ from the Antigua CHOGM will be closely watched. Should the whole framework of CHOGM meetings be fundamentally reworked into a 2-day Retreat, rather than the single day set aside in Antigua? Should this be a ‘seminar for world leaders’ (as Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew famously described Commonwealth summits), with core groups of countries taking the lead on designated specific issues, and reporting back on progress? Can the push for more active and effective partnerships between the Commonwealth governments, the Secretariat, Associated Organisations and civil society be maintained? Mercifully, the discussion around ‘widening’ the Commonwealth (increasing its membership) versus ‘deepening’ the Commonwealth, seems to be favouring the latter. Although there are quiet rumbles of more states wishing to join, this issue is not high on the policy agenda. Don’t expect a repeat of the announcement of Gabon’s surprising admission at the Kigali CHOGM. The hurried inclusion of Gabon and (to a lesser extent) Togo, with their very different histories, institutions and democratic shortcomings, significantly damaged the Commonwealth’s credo of a ‘values-based association’.
There is a lot riding on next week’s meeting.
Republicanism
While now eclipsed by reparations, the issue of republicanism remains in the background of Commonwealth deliberations. The majority of Commonwealth countries (36) are of course republics although 15 still have the King as their formal head of state. Eight of these are in the Caribbean. A 2025 conference on referendums explored why remaining Commonwealth nations with the King as their head of state find it difficult to call a referendum to move to becoming republics. In the August 2025 paper following this conference, the organisers concluded that the success of referendums ‘hinges on careful design, transparent processes, and genuine political will’.
When to vote and what to vote on: The case for referendums in small states
One of the test cases on how this issue will pan out will be in Jamaica whose parliament tabled a bill in December 2024 to move to becoming a republic. By 2025, many were questioning whether Jamaica would actually make the move. The experts continue to wade in on the pros and cons of republicanism in Jamaica, Australia and several other Commonwealth members. There have been mutterings in the Bahamas and Antigua that if the King fails to apologise for Britain’s involvement in the slavery trade, this will stimulate pressure for republicanism. If Barbados’ transition to a republic in October 2021 is anything to go by, the British monarchy accepts and supports this: let it be ‘the will of the people’. Prince Charles represented the Queen at the ceremony in Bridgetown, and Prime Minister Mia Mottley firmly stated that Barbados would stay in the Commonwealth. However, the value of a British monarch as head of state came as support for Canada as it faced down President Trump.
Some of these issues are to be found on the formal agenda, but many are more likely to be dealt with in the networking opportunities thrown up in Antigua during the 1-4 November meeting and at the leaders’ behind-closed-doors retreat on Jumby Bay Island.
