Commonwealth Day

Team spirit underscored at Commemorative events

By Mbeh Moses Eben in Yaounde

Activities to commemorate Commonwealth Day in Cameroon ended last week with authorities emphasizing on the need for stakeholders of the gentlemen’s club including Common Initiative Groups, Civil Society, NGOs and students to adopt the team spirit and always network with one another.

                The commemorative activities here were organized and supervised by the ministry of external relations under the supervision of the Minister Delegate at the MINREX in charge of the Commonwealth, Joseph Dion Ngute. They were guided by the theme for this year’s commemoration-“Team Commonwealth.”

                In his remarks at the solemn launching of the week-long activities at the IRIC here, minister Dion Ngute corroborated the idea that underlined the theme of this year’s celebration, which was a call on the various components of the vast “commonwealth family” to develop and foster “Team Spirit”. He said the theme also sought to highlight the benefits that the wider commonwealth family could reap from working as a team.

                Dr. Dion Ngute observed that the commonwealth has an impressive network of about 90 independent professional associations and civil society and other organizations that bear its name. But he at once regretted that there was hardly any central authority to ascertain and harness the competencies of these bodies.

                The minister therefore suggested the creation of a civil society liaison unit attached to the commonwealth secretariat whose duty will be to link the many commonwealth organizations into a cohesive and impactful whole and to effectively link-up their activities to tie with the secretariat’s work program.

                Dr. Dion who was representing the prime minister, emphasized on such values as egalitarian government, justice, decentralization and provision of more visas by commonwealth partners.

                For her part, the South African high commissioner said she was delighted by the humility and enthusiasm with which young Cameroonians are taking challenges in areas like sports and music which she said are uniting factors both in South Africa and Cameroon. According to her, team commonwealth means the expression of friendship to others with the view to creating a just, prosperous and economically strong community that is void of social ills.

                The British high commissioner echoed the previous speakers when in his remarks to the press he also underscored the need for a common understanding of the commonwealth values of togetherness and team spirit.

       It should be mentioned that this year more and more youths and NGO’s participated in the commonwealth E-learning process. This not only reduced cost but ensured consistency in working and practicing together.    

       Stakeholders called for regular and reinforced dialogue between commonwealth governments and non-governmental organizations so that government policies will reflect both official and civil society perspectives.