They also reiterated the need for reinvigorating regional cooperation and revitalizing the Association as an effective vehicle to fulfill the development aspirations of its people. It formulates policies; reviews progress of cooperation; decides on new areas of cooperation; establishes additional mechanism when necessary and also takes decision on other matters of general interest to the Association.
Up to now, there have been 37 sessions of the Council held. It is mandated to mobilize regional and external resources and to identify new areas of cooperation. The Programming Committee meets prior to the Standing Committee sessions or at the end of each English calendar year to finalize calendar of activities, programs and budget of the Secretariat, Regional Centers and Specialized Bodies.
Fifty-four sessions of the Programming Committee have been held so far. The last four meetings of the Committee one special Session and regular 52 nd , 53 rd and 54 th Sessions were held in Nepal in December , March , February and December respectively.
Connectivity is sine qua non for regional integration in South Asia. Implementation of such instruments would enable regional connectivity in a seamless manner and ensure cross-border flows of goods, services, capital, technology and people. The 18th SAARC summit declaration directed relevant authorities to initiate national, regional and sub-regional measures and necessary arrangements for linking South Asia with contiguous regions, including Central Asia, and beyond by all modes of connectivity.
Meaningful economic cooperation is essential to expedite regional integration process. As envisaged in the SAARC Charter, important steps have been undertaken to expand cooperation in core areas, especially in trade, finance, investment and economic activities. The leaders in the 18 th SAARC Summit expressed their strong determination to deepen regional integration for peace, stability and prosperity in South Asia by intensifying cooperation, inter alia, in trade, investment, finance, energy, security, infrastructure, connectivity and culture; and implementing projects, programmes and activities in a prioritized, result-oriented and time-bound manner.
Given high energy demand and huge energy deficit in the region, energy constitutes another important area for cooperation among SAARC Member States. It has opened up an avenue for energy trade in the region. In view of its natural beauty, ancient civilization and cultural diversity, South Asia has immense potentials for the development of tourism sector.
A joint promotion campaign and marketing is necessary to develop and promote SAARC region as a destination in international tourism market. During the 5th Meeting of the Working Group New Delhi, November , Nepali delegation presented an overview of major tourist destinations in Nepal and also highlighted the impact of April Earthquakes on its tourism business.
Agriculture makes a significant contribution to the South Asian economy as well as to the livelihood of its people. This sector provides over 40 percent employment opportunities in South Asia. The leaders, during the 18 th SAARC Summit, agreed to increase investment, promote research and development, facilitate technical cooperation and apply innovative, appropriate and reliable technologies for enhancing agricultural Food and nutritional security as well as promotion of sustainable agriculture are of equal priority within the ambit of regional cooperation.
South Asia remains in vulnerable zone to environmental degradation, adverse impact of climate change and frequent incidence of disasters all across the world. India worried about all bilateral issues anticipating that their smaller neighbors may internationalize them, and even these nations may be organized against the interests of India. Pakistan, on the other hand, anticipated that the idea was an Indian tactic to sell their products to consolidate and strengthen their economy against Pakistan.
In the course of series of diplomatic deliberations by Bangladesh in between to , finally, India and Pakistan conceded to become members of the SAARC at a conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka in The SAARC Charter, appears as the Constitution of this regional organization, contains provisions on the missions, visions, objectives, principles, structure and functions of the organization, and so on. The member states are legally bound to follow the provisions of this Charter.
However, one of the most important policy issues of the Charter is that it deliberately excludes bilateral and contentious matters from the discussions. The thinking behind the Charter was to recognize and reaffirm the commitment of all South Asian nations to democracy. The SAARC Charter of Democracy has encapsulated many important provisions that recognize the supremacy of the respective constitutions, guarantee the independence of the judiciary, and renounce unconstitutional measures adopted in changing the head of a state.
As provided in Article V of the Charter, the Council undertakes the following functions:. The CoM is mandated to meet twice a year as well also to hold its extra-ordinary session by agreement among the member states. The Standing Committee is mandated to meet as often as necessary. Generally, they meet prior to the sessions of the CoM, i.
The committee reports to the CoM on regular matters and asks for the specific decision on policy matters from the Council, if needed. Technical Committees, consisting of representatives of member states, are responsible for the implementation, coordination and monitoring of the programs in the respective areas of cooperation.
These Committees generally have the following terms of reference:. The Technical Committees shall submit periodic reports to the Standing Committee, and use the following mechanisms and modalities when considered necessary:. Apart from determining the potential and the scope of regional cooperation in agreed areas, Technical Committees are involved in the formulation of programs and preparation of projects.
They also coordinate the implementation of sectoral programs and assess the implementation regularly. It generally meets prior to the sessions of the Standing Committee. It is also mandated to convene on stand-alone basis to coordinate the implementation of the approved SAARC programs and activities.
It coordinates and monitors implementation of activities, prepares for and services meetings, and serves as a channel of communication between the association and its member states as well as other regional organizations. The Secretariat is headed by the Secretary General, who is appointed by the CoM from member states in alphabetical order for a term of three years. Sial from Pakistan is the current Secretary General. The Secretary General is assisted by eight Directors on Deputation from the member states.
Subsequently, SAARC began to focus on some other important matters like finance, economy, trade, energy, climate change, transport etc. Nearly over three and a half decades, SAARC adopted numerous legal instruments covering both agreements and conventions in regulating mutual collaboration and cooperation in some common areas of interests.
Some of its agreements are as follows:. Generally, SAARC organizes Summits biennially through its member states in alphabetical order, and the hosting country of the Summit assumes the Chair of the Association.
The Declaration is adopted by the leaders at the concluding session of a Summit. The Charter provides that the Heads of State or Government "shall meet once a year or more often as and when considered necessary by the member states" Article III.
However, the Summit has generally been convened at an interval of one and a half years or so. Because of the terrorist attack in Uri, and succeeding increased diplomatic tensions, India boycotted the Summit alleging Pakistan's involvement in the attack.
Subsequently, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives also showed the reluctance of joining the Summit resulted in an indeterminate adjournment of the summit.
The next, i. Summit Declarations provide directives and mandate for regional co-operation. According to the statistics of the World Bank, the total population of South Asia is 1. Considering this factual reality, regional cooperation on agriculture and rural development has been in the focus of SAARC from its inception.
In , two separate technical committees on agriculture and rural development were established and a number of specialized programs and projects were initiated by the member states through these technical committees under the auspices of the SAARC Integrated Programme of Action SIPA.
Later, these two technical committees were merged into one. The functioning of this technical committee has been helpful in bridging the knowledge gap, sharing experience and expertise, identifying areas for pursuing regional actions and projects etc.
In addition, a wide array of activities have been going on encompassing this area in the region over the years. However, due to some technical difficulties, the reserve has not been utilized by the member states.
The SAARC Food Bank was established initially to provide emergency supply to a nation facing crisis resulting from production shortfall or a natural calamity like the cyclone, floods, draught, earthquake and such other factors.
The fourteenth SAARC summit held in New Delhi in approved the move to adopt a common approach to collective food security of the region and since then, the institutional progress and policy guidelines have much walked ahead to give it a functional character. The SAARC Food Bank is now operational and now the question is how to make it broad-based and responsive to the challenges of disaster mitigation that a member state may suffer from any of the calamities.
At the time of establishment of the Food Bank, the total quantity of food grain was finalized at , metric tons from the original signatory member states. Thus, the total quantity stood at , MT. This was a follow-up of the earlier three meetings, the first and the second of which were held in Colombo in October and February respectively, and the third one in Kabul in November For more information about regional cooperation on agriculture, rural development and food security, visit the Official Website of the SAARC.
A Board was formed with the delegates from all the member states, who sat for its first meeting in Dhaka on September , The second meeting of the Board is likely to be hosted Afghanistan, or Bhutan. Biotechnology: The need to promote cooperation in the area of biotechnology has been recognized by the Heads of States at various SAARC summits since The Working Group has met several times and in their third meeting, they considered and finalized a concept paper on a program of cooperation in the field of biotechnology between SAARC member states.
The program provides for collaboration in the areas of medical biotechnology, agricultural biotechnology, environmental biotechnology, animal biotechnology, marine biotechnology, bioinformatics, plant tissue culture, genetically modified organisms and bio-safety, marker assisted selection, bio-fertilizer and bio-gas, vaccine production, genomics and proteomics, nano-biotechnology, RNA interference technology platform, stem cell research and Industrial biotechnology.
Some significant headway has also been achieved in this regard over the last two decades. A Regional Study on the Causes and Consequences of Natural Disasters and the Protection and Preservation of the Environment was commissioned by the leaders in and the study was completed in A Technical Committee on Environment was established in to examine the recommendations of the regional study, identify measures for immediate action, and to decide on modalities for their implementation.
SAARC Environment Ministers have been regularly meeting to further enhance regional cooperation in the area of environment, climate change and natural disasters since Since then onwards, SAARC has had numerous important initiatives, action plans, statements and so on. Education: The SAARC principles recognize literacy as one of the major fundamental human rights that can be obtained through education.
Hence, in numerous forums, the leaders of the SAARC have emphasized to enhance the literacy level by a quarter by fostering quality education. The SAARC leaders emphasized especially on vocational education and training, and accordingly directed their education ministers to prepare useful strategies for ensuring the quality education having aims of raising the standards of South Asian educational systems for serving better to the youth of the region.
SAARC countries have been cooperating in the development of various dimensions of human resource. However, in its 18 th Summit held in Kathmandu between November, , decision was taken to close down this Centre. At the thirteenth SAARC summit held in November in Dhaka, India proposed to create a Centre of Excellence, in the form of South Asian University, which can provide world class facilities and professional faculty to students and researchers drawn from every country of the region.
The SAARC nations, pressured by Pakistan, agreed to admit Afghanistan into the bloc with the stipulation that it first hold non-partisan general elections, which it did in late Its member states are plagued by internal divisions, most notably the conflict between India and Pakistan. This in turn has hampered its ability to form comprehensive trade agreements or to meaningfully collaborate on areas such as security, energy and infrastructure. Soon after, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka also pulled out of the summit, citing fears of regional insecurity caused by Pakistan and a lack of a conducive environment for the talks.
It has provided a platform for representatives from member countries to meet and discuss important issues, something that may have been challenging through bilateral discussions. India and Pakistan for example would struggle to publicly justify a meeting when tensions between the two are particularly high, but representatives from both countries could come together under the banner of SAARC.
The bloc has also made some headway in signing agreements related to climate change, food security and combatting the Covid crisis. It has the potential to do far more but that is contingent upon cooperation on key issues between member states. With Pakistan headfast in its support for the Taliban and the rest of SAARC weary to acknowledge the group, any future summit is unlikely until the issue has been resolved.
Click here to join our channel indianexpress and stay updated with the latest headlines.
0コメント