Queen’s Commonwealth Message

The Queen's Commonwealth message focused on Science, Technology and Society.  
 

Her Majesty spoke of how science and innovation have transformed lives in developing Commonwealth countries through improved health care, education and communication technologies during her annual Commonwealth message. 

Marking the beginning of Commonwealth Day 2010, the Queen delivered her annual Commonwealth message at the traditional Commonwealth Observance ceremony at Westminster Abbey. 

Commonwealth Day is celebrated across the Commonwealth each year on the second Monday in March. This year's theme is Science, Technology and Society and events and activities around the theme will continue to take place around the Commonwealth throughout the year.

Message from Her Majesty The Queen, Head of the Commonwealth

Today’s societies are constantly seeking ways to improve their quality of life, and science and technology play a vital part in that search.

Experimentation, research and innovation, mean that more opportunities for improving people’s lives exist today than ever before. Take long distance communication, where the obstacles of time and geography have been dramatically reduced: people can now use mobile phones to be in instant contact virtually anywhere in the world, be it with a medical centre in the Himalayan mountains in Asia, a Pacific island school, a research facility at the South Pole, or even the international space station, beyond this planet altogether.

Advances in modern telecommunications are also having a marked economic effect on people from developing nations in the Commonwealth, helping to transform small to medium sized businesses.  The internet is playing an important part in helping to nurture these fledgling markets but, as yet, it still remains an unaffordable option for too many of our Commonwealth citizens.

Progress in the fields of healthcare, manufacturing, and education have, for the most part, helped improve people’s lives throughout the world.  In the health sector the Commonwealth has shown how collaborative schemes can successfully assist member states to fight pandemics and diseases. 

In making these advances The Commonwealth recognises that the best forms of innovation are those that unite, and help build resilient partnerships and better societies as a whole.

This is particularly important for the more than half of the Commonwealth who are under 25 years of age. It is vital that their potential to build on the exceptional scientific expertise that exists in member states is also fully supported through education and social development.  The Commonwealth understands this, and should continue to aid and encourage our young people to participate in the exciting new opportunities that lie ahead in the knowledge that progress is something which must be sustained and shared by all.