As a vital part of its global connectivity and sustainability strategy, this week, the Commonwealth Secretariat is launching a new, inclusive, accessible and sustainable, mobile-first digital hub, in partnership with their long-term digital partner Cyber-Duck. The new website aims to ensure vital services, from e-learning, funding and campaign information are fully and centrally available for its broad and diverse audience, some of whom are in the hardest to reach places around the world.

The Commonwealth Secretariat delivers projects, technical expertise and tools to overcome some of the most crucial challenges of our time, such as adaptation to climate change, reducing inequality, and recovery from the global pandemic. To best achieve our goals, digital accessibility and exclusion must be addressed.

https://thecommonwealth.org/

Speaking about the new website, Phalguni Sundaram Biswal, from Kolkata India and a Youth Ambassador of India at the recent G7 Youth summit (2021) said:

"As a young Indian working to reduce inequity and increase opportunities for young people in my community and globally, I’ve seen first-hand the impact of digital exclusion. The new Commonwealth website is interactive and informative. It provides users with a good level of interface and has information for the members and broader stakeholders. I look forward to using the information about the Commonwealth experiences to learn from them and share them with my network. I have already found information on the website useful and have already enrolled and completed the e-course on digital infrastructure and closing the digital divide.”

Commonwealth Secretary-General, the Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC emphasised the Secretariat’s dedication to improving digital inclusion across the Commonwealth:

 “Our family of 54 nations, with different needs but shared interests, is home to 2.5 billion people. Promoting a sustainable digital transformation that broadens affordable and high quality digital access is a key goal of the Commonwealth Secretariat. Our own website is a vital tool. We identified a clear need for our digital strategy to help address issues of digital inclusion, sustainability and the speed of communicating with audiences especially during potential crises.” said Secretary-General Scotland.

Delivering on this strategy, the new website’s improved accessibility and faster performance ensures that users in less developed countries with poor internet speeds, often accessed through mobile phone networks, will now be able to better access content such as a new Commonwealth training database that boosts ocean learning for government officials.

Features such as automated data visualisations will also provide users in Commonwealth states with accessible and easily understandable information such as social & economic data in real-time.

A critical goal of this project is to reduce the website’s environmental impact. The Commonwealth is committed to helping member states tackle climate change and adapt to its worst impacts and has been pushing for greater climate action since 1989 when Commonwealth leaders committed to protecting the environment in the Langkawi Declaration.

Cyber-Duck's Client Services Director, Chris Lewis, said:
“Recent research from Lancaster University shows global emissions from computing and ICT are greater than that of the aviation industry, so as a digital agency committed to making digital experiences better, we relished the opportunity to work on this project. Combining strategic UX design and open-source technology allowed us to tackle this issue in two ways – create seamless user journeys that enable people to more swiftly and easily achieve their tasks and build these journeys in a way that minimises their environmental impacts. In doing so, not only were we addressing the Commonwealth's strategic priority of tackling climate change, we were also achieving their goal of improving digital inclusion - issues which we are also deeply committed to as an agency."

To better understand the digital barriers and opportunities involving the Commonwealth’s work, the Commonwealth Secretariat and Cyber-Duck conducted interviews with individuals such as His Excellency Dr Kevin Isaac, St. Kitts and Nevis High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, who said:

“The new mobile-friendly Commonwealth Secretariat website has a much-improved design, and is far more interactive and informative for users such as myself who are looking to quickly and easily find the latest information about various programmes and member countries. Now accessible to all Commonwealth citizens, the new website is a celebration of the shared values of the Commonwealth family.” 

Through this new website, the Commonwealth Secretariat aims to lead by example by addressing our own digital footprint and encouraging others to do the same.

Margaret Atwood, Ben Okri and JM Coetzee have joined more than 100 writers from around the world in calling on the Rwandan president to intervene in the case of the poet Innocent Bahati, who disappeared one year ago today.

According to human rights organisation PEN International, Bahati was last seen at a hotel in Nyanza district, in the Southern Province of Rwanda, on 7 February 2021. The poet, who is well-known in Rwanda and had published poetry on YouTube and Facebook, as well as regularly performing at live events, failed to return to Kigali, and his phones have been switched off since.

Media reports state that his disappearance was reported to the Rwanda Investigation Bureau on 9 February, with a spokesperson claiming that he was not in the agency’s custody, but that an investigation was “ongoing”. Bahati is also a teacher at the Green Hills Academy in Kigali.

Now more than 100 writers and artists have written to Rwandan president Paul Kagame to express their “grave concern” about Bahati’s life and whereabouts, stating their belief that Bahati’s disappearance is “in relation to his poetry and critical expression on issues affecting Rwandan society”.

“We are bringing this matter to your attention, with a plea for urgent action because, one year later, Bahati is still missing and his situation unknown. We note with concern that the Rwandan authorities are yet to disclose any progress or outcome of investigations on his case,” say the authors, led by PEN International president Burhan Sönmez, and also including major international names from Paul Auster to Gioconda Belli, Jonathan Franzen, Yann Martel, Elif Shafak and Michael Ondaatje.

They point to reports that Bahati disappeared in a similar manner in 2017 after posting a critical comment on Facebook, reappearing in police custody after several days, and subsequently being imprisoned without trial for three months, although he was not charged for any offence. Bahati was only freed after a court order.

And they highlight media reports of a speech in March 2021 attributed to the Rwandan secretary of state in charge of culture, Edouard Bamporiki, in which Bamporiki is reported to have said that “when poetry loses its way, it can mislead the public. It is for this reason that I ask you to forget the difficulties that Rwandan poetry community has known in recent times, but rather to do our part to advise and reprimand those amongst who stray from the right path.”

“Coming shortly after the disappearance of Bahati in 2021, these chilling remarks by an official of your administration are hardly coincidental. They suggest a pattern of intolerance to free poetic expression by officials, and they legitimately raise suspicions that Bahati may have been disappeared in relation to his poetry,” say the authors. “We believe that someone within the Rwandan administration knows about the whereabouts or fate of Bahati … Poetry is not a crime. The world awaits to hear the voice of Innocent Bahati, again.” - Alison Flood, The Guardian