SAARC – Introduction
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an organization of South Asian nations, established on December 8, 1985. It is headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal.
The idea of regional cooperation in South Asia was first raised in November 1980. After consultations, the foreign secretaries of the seven founding countries—Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka—met for the first time in Colombo in April 1981.
Afghanistan became the newest member of SAARC at the 13th annual summit in 2005.
Achievements/Role of SAARC
In the past 35 years, SAARC has made tremendous improvement owing to the interaction and cooperative efforts being put in by the member states. Role and achievements of SAARC during the recent years can be looked at under the following headings:
Substantial Increase in Cooperation
Since the formation of SAARC in 1985, the level of cooperation among the member countries increased substantially. SAARC was established with the objective of improving the living standards of the people, cultural and regional economic growth and increasing cooperation with other regions of the world. During the recent years, realizing the importance of regional cooperation and development, SAARC members have now created a sense of accelerating regional economic development and they advocate revival of the organization by moving from just the issuance of declarations to practical implementation of the plans and policies to turn this weak region into a potentially developed one. This recognition has led towards increasing the pace of cooperation among the member countries. This cooperation can be witnessed in the establishment and initiation of various programs and forums for mutual benefits.
South Asian University, New Delhi
SAARC International College, Bangladesh
Agreement on Judicial cooperation on Counter-Terrorism
Establishment of Food Bank
Establishment of Development Funds
Telemedicine Network
SAARC Writers and Literature Foundation
South Asia Foundation
Some other related centers include
South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme
South Asia Centre for Policy Studies
South Asia Women’s Centre
South Asia Olympic Council (South Asian Games)
Economic and Trade Discussions
For the success of SAARC, economic and trade cooperation is very much important and infact the first thing to be focused on for the development of South Asia. Many years of discussions have at least established the bases of cooperation in this particular area. During the 1990s, SAARC discussed the Preferential Trading Area (SAPTA) among the member countries which was materialized in the shape of Free Trade Agreement which is now known as South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA).According to this agreement, the tariff reduction plan was chalked out and since 2006, this reduction had been carried out in two phasesi.e Pakistan and India pledged to put tariffs on all the goods down to twenty percent within two years and all other countries to thirty percent within three years.
Integrated Programme of Action (IPA)
The IPA is an important programme of the SAARC process and includes 12 areas of cooperation, each being covered by a designated Technical Committee. The Secretary-General reports to the Standing Committee on the progress in the enforcement of IPA.
Agriculture Technical committee
Communications
Education, Culture and Sports
Environment
Health, Population Activities and Child Welfare
Meteorology
Prevention of Drug Trafficking and Drug Abuse
Rural Development
Science and Technology
Tourism
Transport
Women in Development
Financial Cooperation
The Meetings of the Finance Ministers of SAARC is an important feature of SAARC agenda. Till now, four Meetings of the Finance Ministers of SAARC have been held in Pakistan (July 11, 2006), India (September 15, 2007), Maldives (May 14, 2009) and Bhutan (August 24, 2010). The First Meeting of SAARC Finance Ministers confirmed the establishment of an Inter-Governmental Expert Group on Financial matters including development of the roadmap for achieving the South Asian Economic Union (SAEU) in a phased manner. The Member States are in the process of exchanging Concept Papers in the area of finance.
Poverty Eradication
As one of the poorest regions of the world, it is one of the most important priorities of SAARC to give attention to this main objective of poverty alleviation.
The seventeen SAARC Summit in 2011 accorded the highest priority to the alleviation of poverty in South Asia and decided to strengthen the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA) which was established in 1991consisting of eminent persons from member states to conduct an in-depth study of the diverse experiences of member states. The strategies for poverty alleviation were suggested as:
Social mobilization,
Access to education, safe drinking water
Health services
Nutrition
Policy of agricultural development
Labour-intensive industrialization
Human resource development.
Focus on Youth
It is a fact that in most of the developing countries, youth is ignored. Although youth forms an important part of development for any nation but still they are not consulted to while taking important policy decisions.
SAARC members have all an increasing rate of the young population and they must be made the center of attention which SAARC has considered upon.
The SAARC Youth Award is awarded to outstanding individuals from the SAARC region. The award is notable due to the recognition it gives to the Award winner in the SAARC region.
The award recognizes and promotes the commitment and talent of the youth who give back to the world at large through various initiatives such as Inventions,Protection of the Environment and Disaster relief.
Cooperation on Security and Terrorism
The SAARC Convention on suppression of Terrorism was signed in 1987 and later the Additional Protocol on Terrorism was signed taking into account the terrorist financing structure. The Additional Protocol on Terrorism was adopted in 2005 after much debate and discussion on the definition of terrorism. In spite of these two important documents on terrorism, there has not been much enthusiasm to cooperate on issues of terrorist violence and funding between the member countries. Cooperation has been confined to bilateral initiatives.
SAARC Terrorist Offences Monitoring Desk (STOMD), Colombo, Sri Lanka
SAARC Drug Offences Monitoring Desk (SDOMD), Colombo, Sri Lanka
Social Cohesion among Member Countries/People to People Contacts
One of the most significant objectives of SAARC is to increase people to people contacts. Though in the presence of large scale institutional set up, it is quite difficult to create an environment for open social interaction but during the recent years, the member countries have realized the importance of this aspect of cooperation and as a result of this thinking, SAARC has tried to undertake a program of well-connected South Asia and that can be possible when people are closed together for which some initiatives have been taken like:
SAARC chairs, Fellowship and Scholarship Schemes
SAARC Youth Volunteer Programme
SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme
SAARC Audio-Visual Exchange Programme
South Asian Festivals
Association of SAARC Speakers and Parliamentarians
SAARC Law (Association of legal communities of the member countries)
Cooperation of Non-Governmental Organizations
SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry
SAARC Scheme for Promotion of Organized Tourism
SAARC Documentation Centre
Moreover, the civil societies in the member countries of SAARC are also trying to create more communication networks between scholars, writers, journalists, academicians, retired civil and military officials.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the establishment of SAARC plays an important role in order to create a friendly international relationship among the countries that are members of SAARC. There are eight states that are members of this organisation. There are nine observer states that are involved in this organisation. The role of SAARC includes the promotion of the welfare of the people who live in the region of South Asia. This organisation plays an important role in having opportunities regarding social, economic, cultural, technical growth and also improving the quality of life.