By Ritah Kemigisa
Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Commonwealth Secretary-General, Patricia Scotland, have announced the week of 20 June, as the new date agreed with member countries for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
CHOGM was due to have been held in Kigali in June 2020 but has been postponed twice due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CHOGM is customarily held every two years and is the Commonwealth’s highest consultative and policy-making gathering.
Commonwealth leaders selected Rwanda as host for their next summit when they met in London in 2018.
Speaking on the announcement, President Kagame said the long awaited meeting will be an important occasion to come together to address the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to build on innovative technological and economic opportunities to solve other key problems facing our citizens.
While the Secretary-General Scotland noted that this will be the first CHOGM to be held in Africa for over a decade and commended the Government and people of Rwanda for their outstanding commitment and dedication to delivering an exemplary CHOGM in Kigali.
The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 54 independent and equal sovereign states. Our combined population is 2.5 billion, of which more than 60 per cent is aged 29 or under.
