The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has held bilateral talks with her Singaporean counterpart, Vivian Balakrishnan during a working visit to Singapore on Monday, 10th June, 2024.

The two leaders held fruitful deliberations which were geared towards strengthening relations through cooperation in areas such as agro-processing, renewable energy, trade and investment among others for the mutual benefit of the two countries.

On the multilateral level, both leaders reaffirmed their shared commitment towards maintaining international peace and security and discussed ways to make the Commonwealth more effective and responsive to the needs of Member Countries.

Ms Botchwey used the opportunity to inform about her candidature for the position of Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, and added that the elections would be held during the 27th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting scheduled to take place in October, 2024 in Samoa. 

She highlighted her transformational agenda for the Commonwealth aimed at building resilience to confront contemporary challenges such as stagnating economies, ever-increasing inequality, high youth unemployment, climate disasters, and threats to democracy and human rights.