Nationality British Education University of Reading | Successor Dr Greg Munro | |
Honours Doctor of Administration (honoris causa), University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013 Employer Commonwealth Local Government Forum | ||
Dr. Carl W. Wright (born 18 February 1950) is a Commonwealth civil servant, former director of the Commonwealth Trade Union Group (1980-1994) and Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (1994-2016).
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Education
Wright spent his childhood in Tenby, Wales, and studied European Politics at the University of Reading, and Regional Economic and Urban Planning at the University College London.
In 2013, Wright received an honorary doctorate in Administration from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Early career
In 1973, Wright joined the European Commission as adviser to Commissioner George Thomson, as one of the first Britons to work for the Commission and Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (1974-80).
Commonwealth career
From 1980-88 he was the founding Director of the Commonwealth Trade Union Group (at that time called the Commonwealth Trade Union Council), which campaigned for human and labour rights, and Assistant Director at the Commonwealth Secretariat (1988-94) where he dealt with Commonwealth programmes for South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique. In 1994 he became the founding director of the Commonwealth Local Government Forum and its Secretary-General from 1995 to 2016. One key achievement during this time was the adoption of the Aberdeen Agenda: Commonwealth Principles on Good Practice for Local Democracy and Good Governance which guides the Commonwealth advocacy and engagement on local democracy and was incorporated into the Commonwealth Charter in 2013. Wright has been a member of the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Government on Post-2015 and Habitat III representing global local government organisations at the Addis Ababa Conference on Financing for Development and COP21 Paris and chaired key UN consultations on 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2013-16).