From 1980 to 1988 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 (198894) 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 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).