Commonwealth Ministerial Meetings

Various ministers from Commonwealth countries meet on a regular basis to discuss common areas of concern. Law, Education, Women's Affairs, Youth Affairs and Health ministers meet every 2-3 years, while Finance and Foreign Affairs ministers meet every year. The meeting of Finance Ministers is timed to take place immediately before the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The proceedings of these meetings will often inform Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) deliberations (such as the proposals for access to information legislation that were debated at the 1999 Law Minister's Meeting and adopted at the next CHOGM); or will be taken by the Ministers to other international fora (for instance, the Finance Ministers work in the early 1990s, along with NGOs, towards the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) programme of the IMF and World Bank).

Ministerial meetings are more focused than CHOGM and are increasingly including official channels for civil society input. At other times civil society develop their own strategies and events to try to influence the meetings.