The Government of India has decided to put forward the candidature of Ambassador Kamalesh Sharma, who is currently Indias High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, for the post of the Commonwealth Secretary-General.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General is the Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Secretariat, which is the main inter-governmental agency of the Commonwealth. The Secretary General is elected by Heads of Government for no more than two four-year terms. The second term of the current Secretary-General is coming to an end in March 2008 and his successor will be elected at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala in November this year.

The Government of India believes that Ambassador Sharma is eminently equipped to undertake this responsibility by virtue of the great interest he has shown in multilateral global affairs and in both South-South and North-South relations and the experience he has gained in these areas in the course of his distinguished diplomatic career, as well as the assignment which he has undertaken on behalf of the United Nations.

As a Foreign Service officer, Ambassador Sharma served with great distinction in many assignments. At headquarters, all three of his assignments dealt with human resource and skills development in the developing world and a wide range of development related issues, and specifically also the areas of trade, finance and technology.

As Indias Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Ambassador Sharma was spokesperson for developing countries in UNCTAD during the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. As Permanent Representative in New York, he chaired the Working Group on Financing for Development and the successful consensus building that he achieved led to the conference yielding the \'Monterrey Consensus\' in the conference in Mexico. He was closely engaged in the process which led to the formulation and adoption of the Millennium Development Goals. Advancement of women\'s rights and the challenge of poverty eradication have been Ambassador Sharmas special concerns.

As the first Special Representative of UN Secretary-General to independent East Timor, Ambassador Sharma was directly engaged in all aspects of nation building and safeguarding its security and his contribution was widely recognised. His contribution and experience therefore extends to discharging practical responsibility on behalf of the international community in an important and complex assignment and goes beyond the conference room.

In his current position as a member of the Board of Governors of Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Foundation since 2004, Ambassador Sharma has taken very keen interest in the activities and advocacy of the Commonwealth, and guided the Government in Indias close engagement with the Commonwealth during this period. He has represented India at the meetings of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group in February and November 2005 and led Indias delegation at the pre-CHOGM Foreign Ministers Meeting in Malta.

Ambassador Sharma has often spoken on the challenges of globalization and the facets of both opportunity and threat that developing societies are confronted with in this era of rapid transformation. He has edited a book on this theme entitled Rethinking the Global Challenge.

Bio-sketch of Ambassador Kamalesh Sharma

The career of Ambassador Kamalesh Sharma has been largely as a member of the Indian Foreign Service (1965-2001), in the course of which he has had wide-ranging diplomatic experience in various parts of the world, culminating as Ambassador in five missions.

He is currently the High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom.

Since 2004, as a member of the Board of Governors of Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Foundation, Ambassador Sharma has taken very keen interest in the activities and advocacy of the Commonwealth, significantly enhancing Indias active engagement with it. He represented India at the meetings of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group in February and November 2005 and led Indias delegation at the pre-CHOGM Foreign Ministers Meeting in Malta. Some of the major events hosted in India during this period are the meeting of the Chief Election Officers of Commonwealth countries, held in New Delhi in February, 2005; Regional Colloquium on Democracy and Development in New Delhi on 25-26 August, 2005 and the International e-Partnership Summit of Commonwealth Connects Programme in March 2007. Over the next few years, India will be hosting the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference in September 2007, the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2008, Commonwealth Games in 2010 and Conference of Commonwealth Speakers and Presiding Officers also in 2010.

Ambassador Sharma was the first Special Representative of UN Secretary General to independent Timor Leste (2002-2004) with the rank of Under Secretary General. The Security Council mandate gave the SRSG responsibility for internal security and for laying the foundation for all areas of public administration, particularly those of justice, financial administration, policing and protection of human rights.

At headquarters in New Delhi, all the three assignments of Ambassador Sharma in the Foreign Office were concerned with the full range of global multilateral issues and engagement within the NAM and G-77. He was head of division of the Indian programme for technical cooperation, particularly in support of building human resource capacity in fellow developing countries (South-South Cooperation). In an assignment to the Treasury, Ambassador Sharma was responsible for the hydrocarbon sector of the Indian economy and the administration of development assistance from Europe. Ambassador Sharma organised the 1995 SAARC Summit in New Delhi including the leaders Retreat in Shimla.

Ambassador Sharmas specialisation has been in multilateral affairs. As the Indian Permanent Representative to the UN offices in Geneva, he acted as the spokesperson for developing countries in UNCTAD during the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. During his tenure as the Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations in New York, he chaired the Working Group on Financing for Development, the success of which led to the Monterrey Consensus between the North and South in a conference in Mexico.

Throughout his career, Ambassador Sharma has shown a strong commitment to all facets of equitable global relationships, enlightened governance, gender equity and engagement with issues of global regimes involving trade, technology and finance. During the Millennium Summit in New York he was closely involved in the process, which resulted in the development of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other collective aspirations of the world community. Ambassador Sharma initiated focused consideration within the UN Membership of the primary challenge of youth unemployment, which resulted in an independent and continuing initiative known as YES (Youth Employment Summits), of which several have been held in various countries. Ambassador Sharma is a frequent speaker on and advocate of the need to strengthen human solidarity and the conviction that collective challenges of the 21st century require collective engagement and solutions, as well as on the theme of the challenges and opportunities created by the era of globalisation and rapid change. Ambassador Sharma was editor of Imagining Tomorrow Rethinking the Global Challenge, which contains contributions from many prominent thinkers on global challenges and Milles FleursPoetry from around the World, which contains poems contributed from diverse languages of the world in the original script as well as in translation, to illustrate both the diversity and unity of the global community.

Ambassador Sharma was educated in Delhi University and Kings College, Cambridge. He was awarded an Hon. Doctor of Laws from De Montfort University, UK. He was a Director of the Peace Academy, New York. He is the recipient of the medal of the Foreign Policy Association of the US. He is a Fellow of Harvard University. He has been particularly involved in the field of education as a Director on Education Consultants India Limited. He is a Governor of Ditchley Foundation.

Ambassador Sharma is married and has two children. His interests involve lliterature, cosmology, cricket, Indian and western classical music and jazz.

Background information on India and Commonwealth

Since the London Declaration of 1949, which established the modern Commonwealth, India has held a pivotal position in this voluntary association of 53 independent sovereign states. It was Indias decision in 1948, as a newly independent Republic, to remain in the Commonwealth which led to the creation of the modern Commonwealth and influenced other Asian and African countries to join the organisation.

India was also among those instrumental in the creation of the Commonwealth Secretariat in 1965 and continues to be the largest contributor from the developing countries to its budgets and activities. In keeping with our active engagement with the Commonwealth, India has hosted CHOGM in 1983 and many other Commonwealth conferences over the years. India recently hosted the International e-Partnership Summit of Commonwealth Connects Programme in New Delhi and over the next few years, will be hosting the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference in September 2007, the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2008, the Commonwealth Games in 2010 and the Conference of Commonwealth Speakers and Presiding Officers also in 2010. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh was the Chairman of the Commonwealth Expert Group on Democracy and Development, which identified that both development and democracy are worth pursuing in their own right and are mutually reinforcing, and gave a new direction to the Commonwealth.

Commonwealth is an international organization that straddles the North-South divide in the world with the immense diversity of races, religions, cultures, geographical spread and stages of development. Both developed and developing, and large and small states have equal say in the Commonwealth, which is marked by consensus, informality and discreetness.

India has a very close interaction with the Commonwealth Secretariat and is a member of key Commonwealth bodies, including its Board of Governors, Executive Committee, Steering Committee of Commonwealth Connects Programme, the Standing Committee on Terrorism, Commonwealth Advisory Board on Sports, and Accreditation Committee.

Members of the Commonwealth

S.No. Name of Countries
1. Antigua and Barbuda
2. Australia
3. The Bahamas
4. Bangladesh
5. Barbados
6. Belize
7. Botswana
8. Brunei Darussalam
9. Cameroon
10. Canada
11. Cyprus
12. Dominica
13. Fiji Islands*
14. The Gambia
15. Ghana
16. Grenada
17. Guyana
18. India
19. Jamaica
20. Kenya
21. Kiribati
22. Lesotho
23. Malawi
24. Malaysia
25. Maldives
26. Malta
27. Mauritius
28. Mozambique
29. Namibia
30. Nauru**
31. New Zealand
32. Nigeria
33. Pakistan
34. Papua New Guinea
35. St Kitts and Nevis
36. St Lucia
37. St Vincent and the Grenadines
38. Samoa
39. Seychelles
40. Sierra Leone
41. Singapore
42. Solomon Islands
43. South Africa
44. Sri Lanka
45. Swaziland
46. Tonga
47. Trinidad and Tobago
48. Tuvalu
49. Uganda
50. United Kingdom
51. United Republic of Tanzania
52. Vanuatu
53. Zambia

* Fiji Islands was suspended from the Councils of the Commonwealth in December 2006 following a military coup.

** Nauru has been categorized as a Special Member as it has defaulted on payment to Commonwealth Secretariat. Nauru may be invited to attend the CHOGM in November 2007, if it clears the dues to Commonwealth Secretariat.