This event is part of the School of Education's Bristol Conversations in Education research seminar series. These seminars are free and open to the public.

Co-hosted by the Education in Small States Research Group (ESSRG) and the Centre for Comparative and International Research in Education (CIRE)

Speaker: Dr Nicholas S.J. Watts FRSA

This presentation will describe the context of the Commonwealth association, or “family’: its intergovernmental organisations (IGOs: the Secretariat, the Foundation, and the Commonwealth of Learning); the 56 member states and how they support and interact with the IGOs and civil society, and the Commonwealth accredited and associated organisations (including the Independent Forum of Commonwealth Organisations: IFCO, which includes the Association of Commonwealth Universities – the ACU - and the Commonwealth Council for Education - CCfE) and Commonwealth civil society more broadly.

This description will serve to contextualise (1) the Secretariat’s environment and energy policy; (2) the Commonwealth Foundation’s ‘critical conversations’ addressing the just and equitable transition to a renewable energy economy and (3) access and influence of Commonwealth civil society (in particular the ACU and the CCfE) on the Commonwealth sustainability agenda and its delivery. It will also address issues around the London-centric organisation of the Commonwealth; performance and election of Secretaries-General (SGs) of the Commonwealth, and who attended COP27 (Johnson, Sunak, the SG but not King Charles, Head of the Commonwealth), why, and to what apparent effect.

Nicholas Watts is a former Fellow of the University of Bristol School of Graduate Education, chairs the Independent Forum of Commonwealth Organisations; is a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London; chairs the Caribbean Studies Association Working Group on Environment and Sustainability; is a member of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication, of the Advisory Board, of SOCARE (Society for Caribbean Research), and is Special Projects Adviser, Commonwealth Association of Museums. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Case Studies in Environment, University of California Press, and Chair of the ESSRG-based UN SIDS partnership "Learning from the Sharp End of Environmental Uncertainty in SIDS”.  

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