The Commonwealth’s Future Leaders Are Coming to Antigua

As Antigua and Barbuda prepares to welcome the Commonwealth, in November, attention is turning to the leaders of tomorrow. The Commonwealth Youth Forum will bring young people together to share ideas, challenge assumptions and help shape the future they will inherit.

When most people think about CHOGM, they picture presidents, prime ministers, motorcades and high-level meetings.

Yet one of the most important events taking place in Antigua and Barbuda this November may involves  none of those things.

Running alongside the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting,  will be the Commonwealth Youth Forum, bringing together hundreds of young delegates from across the Commonwealth’s 56 member nations. These are not simply students attending a conference. They are entrepreneurs, activists, innovators, community leaders and future policymakers who will help shape recommendations presented to Commonwealth leaders.

The Youth Forum is one of several major forums taking place alongside CHOGM, including the Women’s Forum, People’s Forum and Business Forum. While leaders meet behind closed doors, these gatherings provide opportunities for women, young people, civil society organisations and business leaders to contribute ideas and recommendations that help shape wider Commonwealth discussions. Increasingly, many of the most important conversations happen in these forums before they reach the leaders’ table.

Established in 2010, the Commonwealth Youth Forum was created to ensure governments hear directly from young people on issues affecting their future. Since then, it has become an increasingly influential part of CHOGM, providing a platform for youth voices on everything from climate change and education to technology, employment and economic development.

This year’s forum will be held in Antigua and Barbuda from 1–4 November under the theme “Investing in Youth Agency – Co-Creating Pathways Towards Shared Prosperity.” The title may sound like diplomatic language, but the idea behind it is straightforward: young people should not simply inherit the future, they should help build it.

The Youth Forum has a growing track record of influencing Commonwealth discussions. At CHOGM in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2022, young delegates met under the theme “Taking Charge of Our Future”, focusing on entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability, governance and employment. Their recommendations were formally presented to Commonwealth leaders as part of the official CHOGM process.

More recently, at the Commonwealth Youth Forum in Samoa in 2024, more than 350 young leaders from across the Commonwealth developed a Youth Declaration calling for greater youth participation in decision-making, stronger action on resilience and sustainable development, and increased recognition of young people as partners in shaping policy rather than simply recipients of it.

If Samoa demonstrated how young people from across the Commonwealth could influence the conversation, Antigua and Barbuda now has the opportunity to host the next chapter of that discussion.

Antigua and Barbuda will have an especially prominent role. Of the 23 young leaders recently selected to serve on the international taskforce responsible for helping plan and deliver the forum, 11 are from Antigua and Barbuda. Antiguan youth leader Donte Walter will serve as co-chair of the taskforce,  alongside Neema Sheikh Abdikadir Abdullahi of Uganda,  helping guide preparations for what is expected to be one of the largest youth gatherings ever hosted in the country.

The forum  focuses on issues that matter deeply to young people across the Commonwealth, including climate resilience, entrepreneurship, digital innovation, education and sustainable development. For small island states such as Antigua and Barbuda, conversations around climate change, economic opportunity and youth leadership are likely to be particularly relevant.

While visiting leaders may arrive with official entourages and security details, the young delegates arriving for the Youth Forum represent something equally significant: the next generation of Commonwealth leadership. Some will go on to become ministers, business leaders, diplomats, innovators and decision-makers. Others will return home with new ideas, partnerships and networks that could influence their countries for years to come.

For Antigua and Barbuda, hosting the Youth Forum is about more than providing meeting rooms and conference facilities. It is an opportunity to place the country at the centre of conversations about the future of the Commonwealth itself.

The headlines in November may focus on today’s leaders. But it is entirely possible that some of the most important people in Antigua that week will be those whose names are not yet widely known.