GLOBAL NOTEBOOK
Economics is one area in which
the organization has tangible power.
Around 20 percent of global development aid funds flow between Commonwealth member states, and an
agreement by donor member states to
discriminate funds based upon homosexual rights was an initiative to come
out of the most recent CHOGM that
will help to promote the organization’s
founding principles.
The Commonwealth is increasingly becoming an organization of economic and trading significance. With a
combined GDP of US$13 trillion—if
it were a single country, it would be
the second richest in the world—there
are obvious advantages to cooperation
between countries which, for historical
reasons, are now united by a common
business language, shared legal systems, and similar accounting practices.
Intra-Commonwealth trade stands
at US$413 billion, and is rising faster
than global trade trends as a whole,
with research by the Royal Commonwealth Society suggesting that trade
is on average up to 50 percent higher
with another Commonwealth country
than it would be with a non-membe ȸ)