Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General

Two Commonwealth Deputy Secretaries-General assist the Secretary-General in running the Commonwealth Secretariat, which is the central institution of the Commonwealth of Nations. They are assigned an aspect of the Commonwealth's function to address particularly: one to economic affairs and the other to political affairs.

They are elected by the Commonwealth Heads of Government, like the Secretary-General. However, as their terms overlap with those of the Secretary-General, and don't coincide with Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGMs), the Heads of Government are represented through their respective High Commissioners in London.[1]

Currently, the two Deputy Secretaries-General are Jamaica's Ransford Smith (economic) and Botswana's Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba (political), since 2006 and 2008 respectively.

Contents

Lists of Deputy Secretaries-General

Economic

Name Country Start End
Tilak E. Gooneratne  Sri Lanka 1965 1970
Geoffrey Wilson  United Kingdom 1971 1971
Hunter Wade  New Zealand 1972 1974[2]
Incomplete
C. John Small  Canada 1979 1983
Peter Marshall  United Kingdom 1983 1988
Peter Unwin  United Kingdom 1989 1993
Humphrey Maud  United Kingdom 1993 1999
Veronica Sutherland  United Kingdom 1999 2001
Winston Cox  Barbados 2001 2006
Ransford Smith  Jamaica 2006 Incumbent

Political

Name Country Start End
Incomplete
A. L. Adu  Ghana 1966 1970
M. A. Husain  India 1970 1978
Emeka Anyaoku  Nigeria 1977 1983
Position vacant 1983 1983
Emeka Anyaoku  Nigeria 1983 1990
Anthony Siaguru  Papua New Guinea 1990 1995
Krishnan Srinivasan  India 1995 2002
Florence Mugasha  Uganda 2002 2008
Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba  Botswana 2008 Incumbent

Footnotes

  1. ^ Doxey, Margaret (January 1979). "The Commonwealth Secretary-General: Limits of Leadership". International Affairs 55 (1): 67–83. 
  2. ^ McIntyre, W. David (November 2001). "'Viewing the Iceberg from Down Under': A New Zealand Perspective". Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 39 (3): 95–112. doi:10.1080/713999565.