technologies today have enabled many citizens to participate in democratic activities and to remotely engage their leaders and representatives. In Parliaments of democracies at 50, Members have also caught up with computer literacy to cope with the “worldwide school” through the internet. Leaders in democracies at 50 need not only respond to the social media that are driving contemporary political events, but they also need to equip their citizens with trade and investment skills to take advantage of the emerging global economic trends. For example, a decade ago, one writer at the World Bank compared Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand as “Asian Tigers” with some of the emerging democracies/economies at 50 in Africa, such as Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana and Kenya, which were the “African Elephants”. This largely means that
democracies at 50, having been hugely exploited as colonies, are growing steadily. These emerging economies, however, need to engage with such other structures as the South-South co-operation, non-traditional economic partners and “rare commodity” production, where possible. Fifthly, leaders in post-50 democracies need to be aware – and to accept – that income distribution is likely to dominate the next century’s politico-socio-economic paradigm. The demands that currently emerge out of the existing purely capitalist economic system show that greater numbers of people in the world feel that they are being exploited by a few individuals. They are demanding equity in the production and distribution of global wealth. This means that democracies at 50 should carefully guide their economic growth to match the social needs and demands of the
The Secretary-General’s
From left to right: The Chairperson of the CWP, Hon. Alix Boyd Knights, MHA; Dr Nafisa Shah, MP; Rt Hon. Sir Alan Haselhurst, MP; and Dr William F. Shija, during the CPA Executive Committee meeting in December 2011.
The Secretary- General (left) presenting a gift to the High
Commissioner for Sri Lanka in London, H.E. Chris Nonis (right).
Dr William F. Shija (right) greeting former Clerk of the New Zealand Parliament and current Ombudsman, Mr David McGee (left). Mr McGee has also written two books for the CPA.