meetings, from 1983 to 1994. As described by Victoria Brittain in The Guardian, Robertson was "a prominent figure in the historic turning of the tide against Margaret Thatcher's support for apartheid South Africa by the Commonwealth leadership, headed by Sir Shridath (Sonny) Ramphal." According to The Times: "Sir Shridath 'Sonny' Ramphal, the Commonwealth's second secretary-general, was the public face of that organisation's long battle against apartheid in South Africa and Britain’s refusal to join it. Scarcely less important, however, was Patsy Robertson, the Jamaican official behind Sir Sonny, who for nearly three decades used her role as the Commonwealth's spokeswoman to foment international opposition to South Africa's pernicious regime, and to challenge Britain's assertion that it could be reformed, not destroyed." As characterised by Marina Salandy-Brown, "It was a war of attrition, led by Patsy behind the scenes, in which we journalists all had a small part to play." After Robertson left the Commonwealth Secretariat in 1994, she joined the United Nations (UN) in the role of senior media adviser to the Secretary-General of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China, in 1995, returning to the UN to fill the same role for the Beijing +5 conference in New York in 2000, and for the General Assembly Special Session on Children in 2001 and 2002. In 2007 she was appointed chair of the Ramphal Institute – which was founded as the Ramphal Centre for Commonwealth Policy Studies and formally launched at Marlborough House in 2008 at a celebration to mark the 80th birthday of Sir Shridath Ramphal, Commonwealth Secretary-General from 1975 to 1990 – a post she would hold until the time of her death. She was also Chair of Widows Rights International and the Commonwealth Association, and a trustee of several charities including the Thomson Foundation, the Commonwealth Press Union and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum and, additionally, she was a founder member and President of the Friends of the Georgian Society of Jamaica, a small charity founded in 1994 by her friend Pamela Beshoff, dedicated to "the noble task of preserving Jamaica's history and heritage" by conserving and promoting awareness of the island's historic structures. In 2015 the Policy Institute at King's College London announced her appointment as a Visiting Professor. Honours and recognition that she received include a Nexus Commonwealth Award in 2013 for her Outstanding Contribution, "presented to an individual who has