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SAARC in the third cycle:
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The confusion seems to be over as spokespersons of both these seriously affected countries have now made statements expressing their support for the holding of the SAARC Summit in Dhaka on the scheduled dates.
It may be recalled that the thirteenth Summit was originally scheduled to be held in early January this year. It was postponed the first time because of the tragic tsunami that had seriously affected three SAARC members while important political developments in Nepal and the security situation in Bangladesh led to the second postponement.
The forthcoming Summit in Dhaka will mark the beginning of the third cycle. In order to make SAARC more functional and effective it is necessary at this juncture to re-evaluate the existing practices.
When SAARC was launched in 1985, the Summit was envisaged as a functional regional organisation to hasten the process of development and alleviate the poverty through regional cooperation. Unfortunately, instead of functional meetings these Summits have turned into ceremonial meetings with huge fanfare at a tremendous cost to the public exchequer.
The SAARC Summits became such an elaborate extravaganza that one of its members, Bhutan, has been unable to host any Summit because of limited infrastructure. A veteran South Asian diplomat had once commented to me, "Whom are we trying to impress? Don't we know how poor we all are?" After all, 40 per cent of the world's absolute poor live in South Asia. Enough fanfare has been done during the past two decades; it is time to cut down all unnecessary expenses and make SAARC Summits more functional and efficient.
Incidentally, the richest countries of the world that are members of Group of Eight (G-8) or the European Union (EU) hold highly functional Summits without any fanfare. Their Summit meetings are short and professional, and their leaders come with small delegations and spend the entire time under one roof.
The other objective should be to make the Summit proceedings short. The existing practice of weeklong preparatory meetings at various levels should be dispensed with. The Meetings of the Programming Committee of Senior Officers and of the Standing Committee of Foreign Secretaries should be held well before the Summit. Like OIC, NAM and Commonwealth and other Summits, the only preparatory meeting to the SAARC Summit should be a one-day Meeting of Foreign Ministers to finalise the agenda.
In the past two decades, despite its tremendous potentials, SAARC has produced few tangible results and has generally been ignored in the international circles. How do we reverse this trend and make SAARC effective? Well, the first requirement is renewed commitment of all members to the cause of regional cooperation.
We must say what we mean, and mean what we say. Otherwise, we will continue to issue declarations and sign agreements without working for their implementation.
In the past, each member attached priority to those issues, which were of particular interest to them and ignored their obligations on other issues. Such selective prioritisation has not promoted the cause of regional cooperation.
Furthermore, conflicts and tensions between two South Asian nuclear powers and archrivals, India and Pakistan, have very often hindered progress in SAARC. However, there are now visible signs of improvement of relations between the two countries, and it should be in the collective interest of all members to vigorously push forward the cause of regional cooperation. Enough agreements have been signed and declarations made during the past decades and it is now time to work for their implementation.
As the host and the prime initiator of the proposal, Bangladesh has a special responsibility to give fresh momentum to the SAARC in the third cycle. Our basic objective should be not to hold the Summit for the sake of holding it or to take over its rotating Chairmanship, but to take stock of the situation and chart out a new plan of action for the coming decade.
Trade, economic cooperation, and poverty alleviation are the core issues in the SAARC. At the last Summit in Islamabad there was a milestone agreement among the members to elevate SAARC from SAPTA (South Asian Preferential Trade Arrangement) to SAFTA (South Asian Free Trading Area) and it was agreed that SAFTA would enter into force from January 2006. To that end, some meetings of trade officials were held to exchange export lists and to work out details.
The SAARC Commerce Ministers were scheduled to meet in Islamabad on 18-19 October 2005 but unfortunately, due to earthquakes, the meeting had to be postponed. The Dhaka Summit should give a clear directive so that SAFTA could be launched from next January as scheduled.
The basic aim of SAFTA is to broaden economic cooperation, ensure equitable distribution of benefits of trade and to cater to the special needs of the small and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) by providing them with preferential treatment.
The ultimate objective is to create SAEU (South Asian Economic Union) in line with what has been achieved by the European Union. To that end, the last Summit had taken important decisions for accelerated and balanced economic growth through strengthening transportation, transit and communication links across the region.
Likewise, it had directed the working group on energy to undertake a study on South Asian Energy Cooperation including the concept of an energy ring. In this era of high oil prices and rising demands of South Asian countries, a collaborative effort is urgently needed.
Another important achievement of the last summit was the signing of the Social Charter with a view to addressing important social issues such as population, stabilisation, youth mobilisation, women empowerment, human resource development, promotion of health and nutrition, and protection of children.
These are key issues for the welfare and well being of all South Asians. The UN Human Development Report has once again put the South Asian countries at the bottom rung of the table and it should be in the common interest of all members to accelerate the process of human development in the region.
At the Islamabad Summit the South Asian leaders had rightly recognised "poverty alleviation as the greatest challenge facing the people of South Asia" and had declared poverty alleviation "as the overreaching goal of all SAARC activities" The Summit had directed the reconstituted Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA) to submit to Dhaka Summit a comprehensive and realistic blue print setting out SAARC Development Goals for the next five years in the areas of poverty alleviation, education, health and environment. Despite recent GDP growth, 43 percent of South Asians still live below the poverty line and hence this issue must be given further momentum at the Dhaka Summit.
The last Summit had also emphasised the need for undertaking and reinforcing regional cooperation in the conservation of water resources, protection of environment, pollution control and to disaster preparations to face natural calamities.
The recent earthquakes and the earlier tsunami have seriously affected a number of South Asian countries. These disasters have once again underlined the need for the effective implementation of the SAARC Plan of Action on environment. The longer-term objective is to draft a Regional Environment Treaty.
Furthermore, the Summit had taken important decisions to combat terrorism and to strengthen cooperation in information and communications, agriculture, food reserve, cultural, and health areas especially to effectively control tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases.
Turning to organisational issues, according to some reports, Afghanistan had expressed interest to join SAARC as a member and China has also shown interest to be associated with SAARC activities in some capacity. Since there is no provision for inclusion of new members in the SAARC charter, no action could be taken in this regard.
Expansion of membership is a sure sign of vitality of a regional organisation. ASEAN, EU and, for that matter, most regional organisations have over the period of years expanded their membership. Likewise, SAARC should set clear criteria for inclusion of new members and observers, and consider all such requests objectively.
Given these broad parameters, the Dhaka Summit has to take effective actions for the early implementation of these important decisions and to give new momentum to the moribund regional organisation.
During my assignment in Paris, I had appreciated how patiently and meticulously our European Union colleagues have built their regional organisation virtually on the ruins of Second World War.
Their examples should inspire us to strengthen our regional organisation for the benefit of South Asians who constitute quarter of humanity.
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