The Maldives has sacrificed economic development support and its representation at key global negotiations by withdrawing from the Commonwealth of Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat has warned.
Speaking exclusively to Devex in late November 2016, following the country’s decision to leave the intergovernmental organization of now 52 member states, a spokesman said all developmental assistance offered to Maldivians had ceased, and it would no longer be able to represent the country’s needs within international forums such as the Group of 20.
The nation of almost 1,200 small islands has been a development success story for the past three decades, according to the World Bank. Now categorized as a middle-income country, in the early 1980s it was among the world’s 20 poorest nations. Poverty rates have fallen from 40 percent in 1997 to 28 percent in 2004, and it met the Millennium Development Goals to achieve universal primary education, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.