Commonwealth sport. At the Kuala Lumpur 1989 CHOGM it was agreed that it was important to develop new initiatives that would serve to strengthen the Commonwealth into the 1990s and beyond. One such initiative related to sport and the Secretary-General Sir Shridath Ramphal was mandated to establish a Working Party on Strengthening Commonwealth Sport and the writer was asked to become its Chairman. All regions of the Commonwealth were represented on the Working Party and its report was submitted to the present Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, His Excellency Chief Emeka Anyaoku, in summer 1991. Although sport has been one of the most obvious manifestations of the Commonwealth, largely because of the Commonwealth Games, the issue of sport had never been mentioned in a CHOGM communique before Kuala Lumpur in 1989. This rather curious and in my view unfortunate neglect of sport was probably in part because of the principle of maintaining an autonomy for sport in relation to government. While this principle is sound in most respects it is not entirely realistic given the prerequisite of major funding by the host government of every Commonwealth Games since the inaugural Games in Hamilton, Canada in 1930. Furthermore, the sporting infrastructures in every Commonwealth country have traditionally depended upon some government support.

The Working Party was asked to examine the ways in which the Commonwealth might be strengthened through sport. The Committee defined'sport'in its widest terms, encompassing physical education, participation in sport at the grassroots level as well as high performance elements. The work and recommendations of the Committee fell largely into two areas—the strengthening of the Commonwealth Games and the strengthening of sport at the grassroots level. Obviously there is a direct relationship between the two, but