The Commonwealth is the most effective transglobal association outside the United Nations, and high-grade policy work will make it matter more.

• In politics it has led the way in key areas such as education, with the Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol now regarded as binding by UNESCO; in development, with its long campaign for debt write-off for the poorest states; in promoting its values, by suspending governments that cannot match them.
• In trade and investment it has found a new value in the globalised internet world, with widespread use of English, and it contains some of the fastest-growing economies, such as India. The Commonwealth Business Council, founded in 1997, has been forging new bonds for the private sector.
• In friendship and civil society contact it not only promotes the Commonwealth or Friendly Games, but it has created a Peoples' Forum which meets every two years alongside the formal Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

The Ramphal Centre will help make the Commonwealth more relevant to the solution of the world's problems in the 21st century. In the memorable sentence of Sir Shridath, "The Commonwealth cannot negotiate for the world, but it can help the world to negotiate."