14 DAY TRIAL // What is the Commonwealth? Well, as the title suggests (common wealth), it's an informal association of 50 sovereign states with a combined population of 1 billion inhabitants. C.W.'s members include some of the richest but also poorest nations of the world. Britain participates in all of C.W.'s activities.
Some member states are Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and so on. Almost all of the C.W. countries are former British territories to which independence was gradually granted. Here we might mention Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where European settlement has occurred on a large scale. The modern C.W. comprises republics and monarchies that either have autonomy or not, because that doesn't represent a criteria of selection. Look at India, after it becoming a republic in 1949, it joined voluntarily the C.W.
So, you see, no country is forced to enter the C.W., everyone is free to proceed accordingly to their wishes.
Among the benefits of the C.W., there are favorable conditions for trade and business and continuing communication with Britain in defense, banking, education, science, law, sport and religion.
In 1948 was created "The C.W. Development Corporation", which promotes economic development by investing in developing countries. Much of the funding is in the form of government's laws, allocated from the official aid program.
Financial aid is complemented by technical cooperation, the transfer of specialized data, knowledge and skills, from country to country and through, providing the countries in need with the necessary equipment and supplies. All of that is handled by "The C.W. Fond of Technical Cooperation".
Projects supported by Britain in 1990 included the construction of bridges in Kenya, Bangladesh and supplying Pakistan and other devastated countries with water.
Education and training are other major concerns of the Secretary of C.W. and supervised by "The Human Resource Development Group". Its purpose is to improve the access to higher education through the center of C.W. learning that has its headquarters in Vancouver.
The education programs also include the professional development of school teachers, the raising of the education's quality through distance education and collection of teaching materials. The C.W. youth plan devotes most of its energy to youth's development.
This is just a little information about C.W., if I was to write all about this association, it would have taken me much more writing space. So, I told you the essentials. The rest you'll have to discover on your own.
I addressed this subject today because I wanted to give an example to prove that certain associations do their job properly and I also wanted to suggest that helping others does not harm you in any way.