PORT OF SPAIN As it celebrates its 60th anniversary, the 53-nation Commonwealth composed mainly of former British colonies faces an image problem as it struggles to remain relevant, according to a new study.

“These are worrying times for Commonwealth organisations,” said the initial findings of the study, entitled “Common What?” and released on Thursday, which looked at the future of the body.

A low public profile, donor scepticism and a lack of defining goals means “the Commonwealth seems in desperate need of a makeover,” it said.

The body embraces two billion people from the shores of New Zealand and tiny Pacific islands to the jungle regions of Africa.

It encompasses some of the world's leading and fastest-growing economies such as Britain, Australia, and India, as well as some of the world's poorest nations like Vanuatu.

Yet as the Commonwealth prepares for a three-day summit in Trinidad and Tobago, many people have at best only vaguely heard of it.

“Who on earth is interested in the Commonwealth these days - apart from a dwindling band of sentimental royalists, academics specialising in international relations and a handful of weary diplomats who don't have a choice?” wrote one New Zealand political commentator during the study launched in July.

Dubbed the Commonwealth Conversation, a team from the Royal Commonwealth Society has carried out a series of opinion polls to test awareness of the body in several member nations ahead of a final report due in July 2010.

It found that only about a third of Australians or Canadians would be sad to see their nation quit the organisation, compared to two-thirds of Indians or Malaysians.

And only half of those polled knew that Britain's Queen Elizabeth II was the body's head. Some 25 per cent of Jamaicans thought it was US President Barack Obama.

Commonwealth supporters, though, insist the organization by dint of its size and diversity has a key role to play in some of the burning issues of the day.

The presence of non-Commonwealth figures UN chief Ban Ki-moon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen at a closed-door session of the summit on Friday dedicated to discussing climate change ahead of the Copenhagen talks underlined its importance, they argued.

“A political statement out of (the Commonwealth) is not a statement that one can take lightly,” said Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning.

“It comes with the weight of so many countries and so many people, that therefore we feel it can have some effect on influencing the way that the discussions go in Denmark.”

The Commonwealth is also trying to be more inclusive. In a controversial move, the leaders are debating whether to admit the predominantly French-speaking former Belgian colony of Rwanda, despite its lack of obvious direct links to the organisation.

Other African and Middle East states are also said to have expressed interest in joining the body, which accounts for a fifth of all world trade.

Top officials insist the Commonwealth remains as relevant today as when it was formed in the aftermath of World War II.

“We are an organisation of our times, always have been an organisation of the times in which we have existed,” Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma told reporters on Thursday.

Many say that keeping a low-profile helps the Commonwealth carry out its core principles of shoring up democracy and human rights in member states by acting under the radar.

The Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives is cited as an example of a country that has moved towards a democratic government largely thanks to the organisation's coaxing and practical hands-on help.

“The Commonwealth is a network of networks,” spokesman Eduardo del Buey told AFP. “In a globalised world you need global wisdom and the Commonwealth brings a sense of global wisdom, focusing on common values, speaking a common language and in many cases with common institutions.”—AFP