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The former police commissioner of The Bahamas made an impassioned plea for the Commonwealth to support initiatives that will tackle gun crime and violence through-out the Caribbean.

Now High Commissioner of The Bahamas in London, Ellison Greenslade drew on his experience as a former police chief to share insights and knowledge of dealing with challenges to peace and security.

Speaking at Marlborough House, he said: “Many small island states in the Commonwealth depend on tourism as the life blood of their economies. Crime has the potential to destroy these fragile economies. In many countries across the Caribbean far too many young people, predominately males aged between 15 and 30, are dying as a result of gun violence.

“They continue to die in numbers that are alarming and disturbing. A lady wrote to me to a few days ago and said ‘my poor child, my son was murder victim 100 to be murdered in 2017’... I am speaking about Commonwealth battlefields.”

He spoke of murder rates in the Caribbean being four times that of North America, and said high unemployment, drug trafficking and poor economic development breeds crime, violence and gangs across the region.

“There is in my opinion a dire need to find ways to restore hope for 1000s upon 1000s of young men and woman across the Commonwealth who are not engaged and who are not gainfully employed. We must a matter of urgency find creative and interesting ways to engage our young people.”

The Youth Commonwealth Games were held in The Bahamas last year and highlighted the unity events like this can bring. “We thank you so much for considering us. The people of my country are absolutely indebted to you,” he said.

He appealed for continued assistance from the Secretary-General's Good Offices to ‘marshal resources to investigate root causes of poverty and crime and to link us with partners that can help’.

High Commissioner Greenslade spoke at the Marlborough House Conversation on Inclusive Peacebuilding and Prosperity.  Secretary-General Patricia Scotland welcomed participants to the event, stating:

“Our focus, as always in the Commonwealth, is for there to be inclusiveness, with all able to enjoy the fruits of peace and prosperity, and with none left behind. This means drawing together in powerful combination the mutually supporting areas of our Commonwealth work on democracy, development, and human rights – based on our Commonwealth Charter.

“It also means adapting and evolving in order to remain effective as the prevailing environment and specific circumstances change. So our gathering today is an opportunity to consider where and how we need to reconfigure and realign Commonwealth approaches to peacebuilding.”

The Conversation covered six key areas aligned to the Commonwealth Charter:

• To share and discuss the Commonwealth advantage and relevance in global peacebuilding.
• Discuss building and strengthening national infrastructures for peace across the Commonwealth
• Present and discuss contemporary narratives on holistic peacebuilding programming, including a focus on ending domestic violence and peace in the home as a foundation for peacebuilding in communities and countries.
• Engender ideas on how to resource and sustain effective responses to unforeseen political crisis which call upon Commonwealth advantage and trusted partner relationship.
• Present and discuss empirical observations around the implications of Brexit for Commonwealth prosperity.
• Discuss how to take advantage of opportunities that may arise for the Commonwealth from Brexit.

Phil Vernon, formerly associated with International Alert, presented a 6-step model to achieve Peace. The points include:

1. Fair governance agreement in which people feel they have a voice
2. Trusting, functional relationships between citizens and state, and among people
3. Fair participation in a growing economy
4. People feel safe whatever their class, gender, ethnicity
5. Fair access to the means of justice
6. Fair access to services and means to education, health, etc.