The Declaration was issued in Harare, Zimbabwe, on 20 October 1991, during the twelfth Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
The Singapore Declaration had committed the Commonwealth to several principles in 1971: world peace and support for the United Nations; individual liberty and egalitarianism; opposition to racism; opposition to colonialism; the eradication of poverty, ignorance, disease, and economic inequality; free trade; institutional co-operation; multilateralism; and the rejection of international coercion.
It also emphasised in particular a few of the principles and values mentioned in Singapore as integral to the Commonwealth project: At Harare, the Heads of Government dedicated themselves to applying these principles to then-current issues, such as the end of the Cold War, the near-completion of decolonisation, and the impending end of the apartheid government in South Africa.
[4] The next part of the declaration details the purpose of the Commonwealth, and the activities in which it ought to engage to further the values expounded.
[1] Critical to the document is the removal of a reference to the opposition to international coercion, which had been included in the Singapore Declaration.