SAARC’s Development Goals: A Ray of hope for the People of SAARC Countries.

 SAARC’s Development Goals: A Ray of hope for the People of SAARC Countries.

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. This article is an attempt to ascertain the prospect and utility of SDG for the teeming masses of this region. This research paper will focuses the efforts of Saarc to grievous challenges in socio-economic fields confronting the South Asia. It focuses issues like low level of education, health, social inequalities, including availability of potable water, sanitation urban problems and social inequities including discrimination against women. The research paper will bring to light the positive steps undertaken by the Saarc and proffer further steps required for the achievement of Saarc Development Goals.

            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. There were “40 per cent poor in 1993”  now that is increased to 47 percent. “Phenomenal rise in food prices between 2005 and 2007 has increased extreme poverty in South Asia, East Asia and Middle East by one percentage point, a setback equivalent to the progress made by countries in regions over the past seven years” . 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.

            These deteriorated conditions have eroded the quality of peoples as deprivation of opportunities for education and humanistic pursuits have reduced their existence to primordial levels. During the twelfth, Saarc Summit held in 2004 in Pakistan the leaders of Saarc countries signed Social Charter to eradicate poverty and hunger from South Asia. The foremost theme of the social charter was to focus collectively on common issues, developing, and implementing result-oriented programmes in specific social areas. “The Social Charter aims to seek a new concept of development in this unfortunate region through partnership with greater emphasis on human security as opposed to arms security, and use the emerging peace dividend to support the lengthening social agenda of humankind, and form a new partnership” . The social charter provided an effective framework for member states to engage in programmes to achieve Saarc Development Goals.  The 15th Saarc Summit while “acknowledging the significant steps taken to alleviate poverty in the region, resolved to continue to combat poverty through all available means, including especially through people’s empowerment. They committed themselves to continuing to share each other’s experiences and success stories of pro-poor poverty reduction strategies such as micro-credit systems, community-driven initiatives and the raising of the consciousness of the poor on their right to resources and development” .

            The leaders also “emphasized on undertaking sustained efforts, including developing and implementing regional and sub-regional projects towards the attainment of SAARC Development Goals (SDGs). They noted the decision by the Ministers on Poverty Alleviation to obtain an inter-governmental mid-term review of the attainment of the SDGs to be completed by 2009” . The persistent global financial crisis is bound to make matters worse unless long-term structural measures are adopted. International Labour Organisations in its report indite, “At present nearly one billion people worldwide are hungry. The real problem of hunger is not linked to inadequate food supplies but to lack the purchasing power to buy available food” .

            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). In the field of Health, Saarc has focused four goals. In the essential area of Education, Saarc has fixed four goals. In the field of Environment six goals has been focused by Saarc. Following are the SDG in important fields.

1          Saarc Development Goals in the Field of Livelihood

Goal 1                        Eradication of Hunger Poverty

Goal 2                        Halve proportion of people in Poverty by 2010

Goal 3                        Ensure adequate nutrition and dietary improvement for the poor

Goal 4                        Ensure a robust pro-poor growth process

Goal 5                        Strengthen connectivity of poorer regions and of poor as social groups

Goal 6                        Reduce social and institutional vulnerabilities of the poor, women, and children

Goal 7                        Ensure access to affordable justice

Goal 8                        Ensure effective participation of poor and of women in anti-poverty policies and                                         programmes.

2          Saarc Development Goals in the Field of Health

Goal 1                        Maternal health

Goal 2                        Child health

Goal 3                        Affordable health-care

Goal 4                        Improved hygiene and Public health

 

3          Saarc Development Goals in the Field of Education

Goal 1                        Access to primary/communal school for all children, boys and girls

Goal 2                        Completion of primary education cycle

Goal 3                        Universal functional literacy

Goal 4                        Quality education at primary, secondary and vocational levels.

4          Saarc Development Goals in the Field of Environment

Goal 1                        Acceptable level of forest cover

Goal 2                        Acceptable level of water and soil quality

Goal 3                        Acceptable level of air quality

Goal 4                        Conservation of bio-diversity

Goal 5                        Wetland conservation

Goal 6                        Ban on dumping of hazardous waste, including radioactive waste.

Let us evaluate and appraise all goals separately.

The first and prime Saarc Development Goal is the eradication of hunger and poverty from South Asia. In order to eradicate poverty from South Asia Saarc Developments Goals has provided sufficient safety nets so that hunger whether as a routine or seasonal or crisis phenomenon can be effectively addressed. The leaders of Saarc countries corroborated and affirmed their “resolve to ensure region-wide food security and make South Asia, once again, the granary of the world” . In view of the emerging global situation of reduced food availability and worldwide rise in food prices, an Extra-ordinary Meeting of the Agriculture Ministers of the SAARC Member States were held in New Delhi, India in November 2008, which evolved and implemented people-centered short to medium term regional strategy and collaborative projects. These projects would, ensure increase in food production, investment in agriculture and agro-based industries, agriculture research and prevention of soil health degradation, and development and sharing of agricultural technologies.

            Saarc leaders also directed that the SAARC Food Bank should be operationalised urgently. An emphasis on developing early warning systems including food insecurity mapping will be a priority. The leaders also emphasized early drawing up of the SAARC Agriculture Perspective 2020. By current trends, South Asia as a whole appears to be on track to meet the Development Goals target of halving income poverty by 2015 though some countries will have to make greater efforts than others do. Evidence of improvement on the hunger indicator has been more mixed: the proportion of low-weight children fell from 64.1 to 48.4 per cent but nutritional indicator, proportion of population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption fell more modestly from 26.6 to 22.8 per cent. Significantly, greater efforts will clearly be required in this area. It is also important that poverty reduction targets have framed not just in terms of proportions but also in terms of the absolute number of the poor. Without the latter, the moral urgency of the poverty reduction goal is significantly watered down. Poverty goals of South Asia can no longer revolve simply around staving off hunger. This is so not only because significant progress has been made in overcoming hunger, but also because the poor have embraced the more forward-looking goal of a healthy life. While ensuring that no one is left behind in hunger goal setting must move up the ladder in addressing the goals of nutrition and dietary improvement. Targets will specifically include nutritional awareness, nutritional provision for vulnerable groups such as schoolchildren, adolescent girls, pregnant mothers, nutritional supplements (such as vitamin A), targeted development of nutritionally relevant sectors such as homestead horticulture, poultry, dairy and fisheries.

            The significance of growth for rapid poverty reduction has been acknowledged. The participation of poor has been ensured in the growth process, as beneficiaries. Five per cent growth rate targets have been fixed. A significant, nationally determined rate of budgetary allocation has been made mandatory and explicitly targeted to rural and informal economy sectors, and, an explicit focus on productive employment in general and youth employment in particular. An additional target has also been ensured to access of the poor to credit, training and technology that is of vital importance to their livelihoods. “External debt remains a major impediment to development in some SAARC countries” . In Pakistan, “external debt servicing consumes over 20 per cent of export earnings” . However, all SAARC member countries experienced a reduction in their debt servicing ratios. Significant declines were observed for Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The decline in ODA has been another obstacle, particularly for Least Developed Countries. In Bangladesh, ODA as percentage of GDP declined from 7.0 per cent in 1990 to 2.2 percent in 2007. The figures were 11.7 and 7.0 for Nepal, 16.5 and 11.1 for Bhutan, 1.3 and 0.7 for India, and 9.8 and 4.3 for Maldives for same period. On the other hand, accessibility to affordable drugs in the region has been steadily improving. Inaccessibility from the mainstream of economic and social life is an important aspect of the poverty experience. Redressing such inaccessibility and strengthening connectivity through roads, railways, waterways, telephone, radio, T.V., internet, etc., has been made priority.

            The poor, women and children in particular, confront a number of social and institutional barriers and insecurities in the pursuit of their livelihoods and social life. Saarc has made concerted efforts removing such barriers and insecurities. Targets has included eradication of social ills such as dowry, female feticide, trafficking of women and children, bonded labour, child marriage, hazardous child labour, disadvantages suffered by marginalized and socially excluded people, etc. Individual countries may identify more such country-specific social ills. It is a crystal fact that absence of affordable and reliable justice, both criminal and civil, is a major disadvantage faced by the poor of South Asia. Meaningful reforms of the judicial system at the local level, including promotion of appropriate dispute adjudication processes has been made the key targets.

            Ensuring ‘Voice of the Poor’ at all stages of anti-poverty policies and programmes, implementation, monitoring, planning and policy formulation, will be critical to building the ownership of the poor over the poverty reduction process. One of the ways to ensure this is through giving adequate representation to the organizations of the poor at all levels of the poverty reduction programme. It is also important to emphasize the importance of the active involvement of women in decision-making processes within households and outside. The Saarc has grouped health goals into three: reproductive health and health-care, hygiene and nutrition. The nutrition goal has already been covered under livelihood SDGs as this has implications for both areas. Many of the goals here are universal in nature. The distinction of the SDGs would again be to put the spotlight on some of the critical process dimensions. Experience has shown that improvement in sanitation is not a one-step affair but is more of a graduated transition whereby, there is a sequence starting from open space, closed space but non-sanitary, semi-sanitary and finally sanitary. The process of change will not be understood if this graduated transition is not taken into account.

            The Saarc Development Goal has not only focused on maternal mortality but also strived on improved nutritional status of adolescent girls and pregnant women. Key targets will include increased presence of skilled birth attendants, pre and antenatal care, and a rapid decline in total fertility rate (TFR) to reach the replacement level within a definite period to be specified by member country. The main target is to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015. Steep percentage declines have occurred in some countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal from relatively higher 1990 levels while in Sri Lanka the absolute rate has been reduced to 19 deaths per 1,000 live births, the lowest in the region. For SAARC countries as a whole, the rate of reduction has been 27 per cent during the last 14 years.

            The SDG is to improve maternal health. No reliable data exist to assess the critical area of maternal health with accuracy. Available statistics indicate great divergence from a mortality rate of less than 100 per 100,000 women giving birth in Sri Lanka to a mortality rate of more than 700 in Nepal. A crucial indirect indicator here is the presence of skilled birth attendants. It would appear that more than 60 percent of women giving birth in South Asia still do so without the assistance of skilled attendants. Clearly, this is going to be one of the greatest challenges South Asia has to tackle in the coming decade. Improving data collection on relevant indicators on this goal will also have to be a priority. The SDG has fixed key targets including universal immunization of children, universal practice of breast-feeding, and provision of nutritious mid-day school meals at the primary level, access to primary health-care services in every village run by paramedics, access to affordable medicine including essential and alternative medicine, training of rural medical practitioners, including those practicing alternative medicine (revival of LMF/rural doctors), and awareness raising programmes to combat major diseases.

            Statistics on the spread of HIV/AIDS in South Asia is insufficient; available estimates show a low HIV infection rate of 0.05 percent but this translates into an infected population of nearly five million. If unattended, this can grow to be a much bigger problem. Other infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis have a longer presence in the region and continue to pose major health challenges for the population. SDG has decided to address them collectively. The main targets of SDG is access to safe drinking water and sanitation, raising awareness of important aspects of public and social hygiene e.g., washing of hands after visiting latrines, avoiding spitting and defecation in the open etc., effective enforcement of laws on banned substances, and, ban on, and effective enforcement of smoking in public places.

            The Third SDG is universal access to basic education. This needs to be reiterated as South Asia is yet far from full achievement on this goal. However, there is a need to move to more forward-looking supplementary goals, i.e., completion rate, quality education, gender parity, computer literacy. Some innovative goals are also necessary, i.e. universal coverage of nutritious mid-day school meal at primary levels, incentive programmes for girl students and disadvantaged groups. “Net primary enrolment in the South Asian region as a whole has increased from 73 to 82 per cent” . While progress for some countries has been considerable as in Bangladesh, for some others assessment is difficult because of a lack of adequate enrollment data. Moreover, the countries were at varying levels of literacy. Except for Sri Lanka and Maldives, the situation is quite challenging on related indicators such as primary completion rate and full literacy. Of great concern is the fact that nearly a third of South Asian youth are illiterate. The target is to attain gender parity in primary and secondary education to all levels of education by 2015.

            There has been a steady reduction of gender disparities in primary, secondary and tertiary education in all SAARC countries. On the empowerment indicator, despite steady progress in the South Asian region, women’s participation in non-agricultural employment remains modest, at around 20 percent. Gender equality also continues to fall short in the legislative arena with less than 10 percent of parliamentary seats in the region occupied by women with no clear trend of increase or decrease. Efforts have been made to ensure availability of school within walking distance in every village, urban center, and achieve gender parity at both primary and secondary levels. The SDG would ensure that children should remain into school and complete the cycle. Key targets include universal retention rate at the primary level, acceptable level of teacher-student ratio, provision of mid-day meal, acceptable coverage of girl students and students from disadvantaged groups at primary, secondary and vocational levels through stipend program. One important requirement is the provision of separate toilets for girl students in all schools. One in three South Asian adults is uneducated. Over and above the goal of universal basic education through the formal school system, additional efforts at informal and community levels are needed to ensure that all members of the population, in particular illiterate young adults, attain functional literacy.

            In order to engage with the challenges of the 21st century, Saarc has to embrace the goal of quality education. Main targets should include training of teachers at primary, secondary and vocational levels, connectivity opportunities to make this possible, and an improvement in the courses and curricula in order to meet the requirement of productive employment.

            The Fourth Saarc Development Goal is to ensure environmental sustainability. The relations between environment, infrastructure and poverty are strong. All South Asian countries depend on agriculture for a large proportion of GDP, and most of them confront problems of water scarcity, soil erosion and water logging and salinity. Adequate and improved environmental management in the region is also required. The extent of poverty in the region and the vulnerability of the poor to the risks of natural disasters particularly in Maldives, Sri Lanka and coastal region of Bangladesh, require investment and strengthening disaster management mechanism. Saarc has identified five targets, forest cover, energy intensity of the economy, sustainable access to safe drinking water, and, sanitation on the target of access to safe drinking water, access for the region as a whole increased from 72 to 84 per cent. Available data show that Bangladesh and Maldives have achieved near universal access. However, if arsenic contamination is factored in, the picture could change particularly for Bangladesh and India. The rationale for identification of the environment sector goals is to conserve natural resources necessary for life-support and livelihoods of the poor, and to ensure that their health is not impaired. The latter, in turn, have profound implications for the well-being and livelihoods of the poor. The main nexus of environmental degradation with poverty is the lack of secure rights of the poor over natural resources, in particular, land, water, forests and bio-diversity. Accordingly, the overall approach should be to secure the entitlements and access of the poor to natural resources, so that they are enabled to gain better livelihoods from the fact of conservation of resource, rather than from its conversion or degradation. In addition, the inadequate enforcement of pollution norms differentially affects the poor, and effective enforcement of environmental norms to reduce or eliminate exposure of the poor to pollution caused by others need to be ensured.

            The main targets include reversing the process of deforestation. The SDGs aims at engaging traditional communities in forest conservation, promotion of social forestry including roadside and homestead forestry, appropriate water management, ban on ‘dirty dozen’ of pesticides/insecticides, control of waste and industrial discharges, use of organic fertilizers, reduction of indoor air pollution caused by inefficient biomass cooking devices to acceptable levels, discouragement of leaded petrol, and improved solid and hazardous waste management. South Asia is home to one of the richest bio-diversity bases of the world. Conserving this is a key priority preferably done in situ in accordance with the Convention on Bio-Diversity. Legislation and its enforcement to ensure flow of benefits to local communities from access to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge is necessary. Wetlands in South Asia are numerous and providing livelihood to the peoples of that area. Unfortunately due irrational policy pursued by traders and MNCs face degradation and extinction. They are essential for eco-systems and bio-diversity. They also form the common property resources (CPR) still somewhat accessible to the poor for food, medicine and livelihoods.

            Their conservation is essential for both environmental sustainability and poverty reduction. MNC are dumping hazardous wastes in the seas adjacent to South Asia. The littoral countries of Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal should devise and originate legislation to ban the dumping of hazardous waste and radioactive waste in the region. While the SDGs and the ISACPA Report: ‘Our Future Our Responsibility’ articulate the regional will for a comprehensive and strategic response to the problem of poverty and social development, the formulation of specific targets and indicators will have to be carried out at the national level. The appropriate format for this task is the national level poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP) or an equivalent process such as the national development plans. Effective interfacing of SDGs and PRSPs will provide the added benefit of harmonizing regional and national strategies.

 

Process of Preparing and Implementation of SAARC Development Goals (SDGs) 2005-2010

            As mandated by the Twelfth and fifteenth Saarc Summit, SDGs has been formulated for four priority areas: livelihood, health, education, and, environment. These soft sectors are directly relate and affecting the poor section of population. These goals have to ensure the of the growth process, the opportunities for the poor to be participants, and the equity consequences of growth. These goals are destined to accord commitment to rural and informal sector and more budgetary allocation for rural areas since the majority of the poor reside in the rural areas. There active participation will boost the economy of all South Asian economies.

            The SDGs had addressed the vulnerability aspects of poverty. The economic vulnerability is due to natural disasters, seasonal deprivations and other crises. The safety net measures are essential. The SDGs has addressed the social vulnerability, which emanates from a variety of social ills such as dowry, child marriage, trafficking etc that has negative consequences on the well-being of women and children. Combating such vulnerability will require awareness campaigns and legal and institutional safeguards. The eradication of social vulnerability would ensure social cohesion. The institutional vulnerability, which emanates from the lack of affordable justice for the poor, is also contributing poverty and social inequalities. The dangerous consequences of such vulnerability are not limited to economic losses for the poor but also extend to unpredictability in the social environment within which the poor pursue their livelihoods.

            Implementation is a national responsibility. However, in formulating the implementation strategy, the following general principles need to be considered: A sustained and innovative motivation campaign is sin qua non. It should provide positive incentives to relevant stakeholders. Ensure stricter laws and punishments as deterrence to persistent violators of rules and regulations. The Saarc should establish inter-ministerial task force to monitor time bound action plan, specifying responsibilities of different implementers. There should be reprioritization of resources; collaboration and coordination among relevant GOs, NGOs, LGOs and for-profit private sector, media, academia and development partners; learning lessons from the region and the world at large; and putting in place an appropriate monitoring mechanism.

 

Benefits of Saarc Development Goals

The formulation of the SDGs allows for identifying areas, which merit, and will benefit regional cooperation. SDGs would reinforce current regional initiatives, such as on trade liberalization, investment promotion, infrastructure development and implementation of social charter. SDGs would ensure social development and pro-poor growth and provide regional financial resources for poverty alleviation. SDGs would enhance SAARC Disease Surveillance Network and include developing early warning systems, promotion of regional indigenous medicine systems, and regional cooperation in intellectual property rights in the health sector. Its achievement would prevent human organ trade, prevent trafficking in women and children, prevent dumping of hazardous, including radioactive waste, and ensure wetland conservation in the region. It would aim at harmonizing indicators and promoting low-cost monitoring methodologies.

            Formulation of SDGs becomes consequential provided the entire process is imbued with a results orientation. In order to achieve results, it is essential to establish benchmarks using all available data as well as evolving an effective monitoring strategy. Benchmarking and primary monitoring will have to be a national task but standardizing indicators and innovating on low-cost monitoring methodologies can be a very fruitful area for regional co-operation.

            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 purpose of the SDGs in this context is to sharpen the focus and the message wherein engagement is a priority. The engagement is not just for policy planning. It is as importantly an engagement for results, for inclusion, for imaginative solutions, and ultimately an engagement with hope.

            The conceptualization of Saarc Development Goals confronted a number of challenges since its nascent stage. These goals represent a powerful reference frame to mobilize policy constituencies, galvanize popular imagination, guide the formulation of implementable policies, and facilitate the monitoring of progress. The potency of the Saarc Development Goals will lie in their very usefulness and universal appeal. The mandate given to develop SDGs in the four areas of livelihood, health, education, and environment is of particular significance to the fight against poverty as they are interconnected. Not only does each of these have a fundamental bearing on poverty, their synergies and their combined impact will largely determine the pace of poverty reduction in South Asia.

            There are diverse challenges that have to be surpassed in materialising the SDGs. The more difficult challenge is to include the SDGs into the National Development Plans/PRSPs.  Unfortunately, the Saarc countries are lacking will to prioritize the SDGs in the light of national concerns and develop targets and indicators for each of the SDGs, allocate adequate resource, manage public expenditure, resource mobilization, exploring external resources and building multi-stakeholder partnerships and above all develop an effective implementation plan required for the achievement of targets. There is lack of regional will and cooperation, lack of credible database at both national and regional levels and monitoring progress.

 

CONCLUSION

            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.

Abdul Qadir Mangi

Professor Dr Abdul Qayum Mangi

Principal, College of Superior Services

Sukkur Sindh