As the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation enters into the third decade of its existence, activists and civil society leaders have called to make it a ‘people’s SAARC.”
Addressing a national consultation meeting organised in the Nepali capital Wednesday, president of NGO Federation of Nepal, Dr Arjun Karki, said it was easier to travel to Europe or America compared to travel from one South Asian country to another within the region. He demanded that SAARC governments implement concrete measures to facilitate people-to-people contact within the region.
Karki further said that poverty reduction, food security, gender disparity and trafficking of women and girls were major challenges being faced by SAARC. He said national consultation was going on in six SAARC members (except Bhutan) to raise people’s agenda in the forthcoming SAARC Summit due to be held in Dhaka early next month.
Economist and chairman of Poverty Alleviation Fund, Dr Mohan Man Sainju, said South Asian countries had the characteristics of the `soft state.’ He said mobilizing local communities and ensuring people’s participation in development works was key to eradicate poverty.
Deputy Prime Minister, Bharat Mohan Adhikari, admitted that SAARC was far behind compared to regional organisations like the European Union and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). He said there was a need to introduce new concepts/attitudes to make SAARC effective.
Former minister and Nepal focal point of South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE), Mrs. Bidya Bhandari, said people’s SAARC summit aimed at supporting the official process of SAARC between the governments. She added that issues like poverty, conflict resolution, trafficking of girls and women and role of women in decision making needed to be debated and given more prominence in the SAARC agenda.
Member of National Planning Commission, Dr Hari Krishna Upadhyay, said nearly 40 percent of the total poor in the world lived in South Asian region. He said widespread poverty in the SAARC had economic, social, political, institutional and psychological aspects and needed to be addressed accordingly. He said there had been enough study to identify the problems being faced by the region. Now, there was a need to recommend entry point or correct intervention point to address these problems.
According to the Poverty in South Asia 2003, a study conducted by SAAPE, nearly one half of the world’s illiterate people live in South Asia. Around 500 million people live in absolute poverty and over 400 million people go hungry every day. There are more children out of school in South Asia than in the rest of the world, and two-thirds of this wasted generate is female, the study said.
Civil society groups in South Asia have blamed their governments of not doing enough to address to such a situation. They have also alleged that the waves of liberalization and globalisation have made a few people in the region rich while turning majority of them poorer.
A parallel SAARC people’s summit, due to be held in Dhaka (on January 4-5) ahead of the official summit, is to present its recommendations to the SAARC leaders through SAARC Secretary General, Q. A. M. A. Rahim, according to Dr Karki.