The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation is a regional organisation consists of eight countries and nine countries having observer status. The Saarc was established in December 1985 to reduce the suffering of the succeeding generations of South Asia from perpetual war, poverty and underdevelopment. Like other regional organisation of the world, it has vehemently strived to achieve the success in the mutually agreed areas of cooperation. The Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation in its report “Our Future, Our Responsibility” (2003) has adumbrated a road map for a poverty-free South Asia. The 15th Saarc Summit held in August 2008 at Colombo has regarded poverty and underdevelopment as a fatal challenge to the lives of South Asian and endeavored to eradicate this menace from South Asia and make the South Asia a poverty free region. The SAARC following the footsteps of the United Nations established twenty-two SAARC Development Goals in four important and vital fields. These vital fields are livelihood, Health, Education and Environment. These fields are further divided and segregated so that more and more benefits can be acquired to meet the needs of poor masses of South Asia. The world's economic centre of gravity has apparently shifted to Asia due to tremendous economic progress achieved by the Asian countries. North East and South East Asia has forged commercial and economic cooperation in trade, investment and technology. China, Japan, South Korea and ten ASEAN countries has achieved enormous success in terms of economic and technological advancement. These countries have been able to benefit from the processes of globalisation and have positioned themselves to optimise gains. Their tremendous progress has forced other regional countries to emulate their economic and commercial policies to alleviate poverty and underdevelopment. The Indo-Pak sub continent is also experiencing significant processes of regional commercial and economic cooperation. South Asia, home to one-sixth of humanity, cannot remain indefinitely mired in poverty and affliction. South Asia has resources, talent, skills and industrious peoples. South Asia has a great human capital and is the best. The South Asian countries have capability to turn South Asia into an economic powerhouse of the world. Unfortunately, due to diverse internal and external factors South Asia continues to be home to about 47 percent of the worlds poor. The blight of poverty in South Asia is divulged by the reports of United Nations, United Nations Development Programme, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. They reveal that unfortunately, more than 500 million people out of 1.5 billion populations live in absolute poverty. 270 million people lake access to even elementary health facilities, 350 million are without safe drinking water, 830 million have no access to sanitation and 430 million, of which two third are women, are unable to read and write, yet the South Asian countries are spending more than 60 billion dollars every year to accumulate weapons of mass destruction. That is why the South Asia has emerged as the poorest, the most illiterate, the most malnourished and least gender sensitive region in the entire world due to avarice of self-annihilation. These appalling and shocking figures agitate the conscience of sane person that why South Asia despite abundant natural wealth and human resources has remained economically impoverished, politically fragile and intellectually barren. It is heartening to know that the region, which only four decades ago was far ahead of the now prosperous economies of Asean countries, has slides behind even the Sub-Saharan states in almost all economic and social indicators. The SAARC countries constitute 20% of the world population, has barely 1.5 per cent of the world’s GNP and 3.3 per cent of the world’s total area. Obviously, it has the largest concentration of the world’s poverty. Thus, it has been ranked as third major concentration of population in the world. Surprisingly, its share is more than 47% in the total number absolute poor, 45% in total number of adult illiterate females and 49% in the total number of malnourished children. Despite exceptional economic growth in Saarc countries, human development levels in the region are appalling. Poverty is uncontrolled and soft sector like health and education indicators are major areas of apprehension. South Asia is unique in the world in having a concentration of third world economic problems, at the forefront of which is the poverty of its population. The poverty has increased because the financial conditions have become much depressing, capital flows to developing countries have decreased, and vast amounts of capital have been withdrawn, leading to sharp falls in equity valuation and increased in bond spreads. South Asia in terms of development has been amongst the susceptible regions of the world. The main reasons is the past history of conflict, violence and ruthless colonial rule, discord among diverse cultures, overpopulation, abject poverty, colossal corruption in all walk of life, lake of necessary infrastructure, and absence of good governance. The member countries have neglected environmental and social issues. This coupled with even weaker law enforcement implies that matters of vital concern are deliberately ignored on the pretext of territorial security. There is no region more in need of the alleviation of the lot of its people than South Asia. By all indices of economist, its people have been ranked as the poor and the region itself is the hard-core world poverty. The per capita income of the regional countries are estimated between 100$ to 100$, because of which it can be said that South Asia had the bulk of poverty. This implies horrifying living conditions of hunger, deprivation of life necessities, malnutrition, disease, squalor and living death of peoples. The Saarc has emulated the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which were established at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000. The world leaders had “decided to set up assessable plans envisaging goals and targets for combating and eradicating poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease, environmental degradation and discrimination against women” . The MDGs bring to light the linkages amongst social sustainability and environmental challenges and deal with issues like human health, poverty reduction, gender equality, primary education and child mortality. With the strong international political willingness and pledge to bear out the process, the MDGs symbolize a “once-in-generation opportunity” to make momentous progress towards the betterment of humankind. The Saarc in order to reduce the itinerary of underdevelopment has chalked out a plan of Saarc Development Goals under which vulnerable areas will be addressed and concerted efforts would be taken to achieve goals. Saarc has fixed eight goals in the essential field of Livelihood (poverty alleviation). The world has embarked the path of change so the South Asia. To materialise the dream of a poverty-free South Asia demands vigorous, intellectual and innovative engagement from all member governments, development agencies, and above all, from the people of South Asia themselves. The research paper concludes that accomplishment of SDGs in South Asia necessitate firm political commitment, pursuance of sound and stable economic policies, foreign and domestic investment in infrastructure, health, education, environmental management, housing and sanitation, transparent and equitable governance, transparent and efficient service deliveries. The SDGs symbolize vital targets for south Asians. SDGs such as the reduced poverty and hunger, assured gender equality, improved health, raised education, and maximum access to potable water and sanitation would be the natural goals of member states of SAARC. Once the SDGs are accomplished, the South Asian society will arrive at a point ready to take-off for a new era of peace, harmony and sustainable development. In this sense, the SDGs represent a vital investment sustainable flight to development conducive for the downtrodden masses of South Asia. The potential for SAARC to become a most important force in an era where regional groups, such as the European Union, ASEAN, NAFTA, UNASUR and Mercosur are dominating global trade and investment flows, is enormous but will only materialise provided all its member countries resolve their outstanding bilateral differences and work collectively. The South Asian region is affluent in human capital, owning a large portion of the world's population, and natural resources. A powerful Saarc mean that South Asia becomes a key player on the global stage, both economically and politically. Unfortunately, on international forums there is an absence of unanimous voice of the countries of South Asia. It is mainly due to the “rivalry between the two major member countries of Saarc, India and Pakistan. Their animosity has prevented SAARC from realising its true potential. South Asia, home to one-sixth of humanity, cannot remain indefinitely mired in poverty and affliction. South Asia has resources, talent, skills and industrious peoples. South Asia has a great capital and human resource. It is second to none. The Saarc have the ability to turn South Asia into an economic powerhouse of the world. Pakistan-India relations are not ordained to remain adversarial perpetually. A sense of confidence in common destiny coupled with the courage to take bold decisions to turn the corner is required. It is time for a strategic re-think. It is time to move away from unbending mindset. The policies must be realistic and pragmatic. The time has come to bridge the trust deficit. Both countries must move away from conditioned reflexes to open new avenues and cover fresh ground in bilateral relations. They should learn from history and experience of other nations in managing regional relations. The Saarc need to seek just and durable solutions of all outstanding issues including Jammu and Kashmir, Sri Lankan crises. It is time to accommodate in the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. This is an imperative of justice, history and democracy. A new beginning, a new dawn awaits the peoples of South Asia. In order to achieve the targets set by Saarc Development Goals constructive engagement requires vision, sagacity and sense of purpose. There is a huge area of convergence. Divergences can be minimized. All countries must cultivate amiable relations and must respect each other's sovereignty, territorial integrity and base their relations on principle of sovereign equality. All countries should respect the principles of non-intervention and non-interference and endeavor to win each other's trust and confidence. Respect for these basic principles of inter-state conduct is the safe and sure foundation on which all countries will thrive and prosper. Pakistan looks forward with confidence to engaging India overall range of issues. Pakistan and India must lead South Asia to new horizons of economic development. The basic economic indicators of South Asia will alter and the dream of Saarc Development Goals will offer enormous opportunities to the South Asian people. Prof Dr Qayum Mangi