Samoan Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, and the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Patricia Scotland, have announced the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) will be held in Apia, Samoa, beginning on 21 October 2024.
CHOGM – customarily held every two years – is the Commonwealth’s primary political meeting. Building on progress since CHOGM 2022, leaders will deliberate on global economic, environmental and security challenges, and discuss how the contemporary Commonwealth can work together to build resilience, boost trade, innovation, growth, and empower the Commonwealth’s 1.5 billion young people to build a more peaceful, sustainable future.
Commonwealth Leaders selected Samoa as the incoming Chair-In-Office and host of the next CHOGM at last year’s Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda. It will be the first CHOGM to be held in a Pacific Small Island Developing State and the first since Gabon and Togo officially joined the Commonwealth, increasing the number of member nations to 56.
Prime Minister Mata’afa said: “We look forward to welcoming the Commonwealth family to our home. We are weathering unprecedented times as the Commonwealth and the world in general; the adaptive response is anchored in solidarity and building resilience as a matter of survival.
“Already, we are hard at work, hand-in-hand with the team from the Commonwealth Secretariat, and counting on the support of our partners and the Commonwealth Family, to ensure a successful, productive and unique event. We look forward to the transformative change, renewed purpose and the strengthening of the spirit of cooperation that will come out of this CHOGM,” she said.
The Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland stated: “Our Commonwealth of 56 nations and 2.5 billion people stretches across five continents and six oceans, but we are united in our commitment to our shared values and goals.
“The Commonwealth’s unity and purpose flows from our Charter, and from the mandates of our Heads of Government, so every CHOGM is pivotal in bringing our leaders together to build further cooperation on the challenges and opportunities of the world.
“As we continue to deliver the mandates from our fantastic CHOGM in Kigali last year, we are already looking forward to CHOGM 2024. And it comes at a vital time – especially as the impacts of climate change intensify – so it is fitting that our global family will meet for the first time on a Pacific Island. Samoa may be classed as a small island state, but it is a wonderful country with a huge heart, and I warmly welcome the generous hospitality offered by its government and people.
“In Samoa, Commonwealth Leaders will meet in common cause to continue our shared effort to innovate and transform our societies, to that we all can live in a more equal, more peaceful more resilient, more prosperous and more sustainable world,” she said.
Alongside meetings of Heads of Government, which will include a Commonwealth Leaders-only retreat, CHOGM week will include meetings of Foreign Ministers and a range of high-level forums and events to engage young people, civil society, women, business leaders and international institutions.
Prime Minister Mata’afa and the Commonwealth Secretary-General intend to announce further details, including the official theme for CHOGM 2024, in the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York in September.
SOURCE: COMSEC/SAMOA GOVT/PACNEWS
