Tapping the full potential of SAARC

Shahiduzzaman Khan The lacklustre outcome of the just-concluded South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Addu city of the Maldives demonstrated that the South Asian people and their leaders had not taken up adequate efforts to improve cooperation in different fronts. The high-profile summit failed to adopt the SAARC Charter for Democracy as the process is dominated by bureaucrats not by the citizens' initiatives. The leaders always talk about connectivity but do not make a visa-free regime or at least easy process of issuing visa for their citizens although the SAARC summit is organised by taxpayers' money. Regional experts say slow progress in attaining the SAARC goals points out the necessity of bringing fundamental changes in its structure for making the bloc effective. South Asia with a population of more than 1.5 billion is the least connected region and the world's largest concentration of poverty-ridden people. SAARC process has been allegedly stalled due to bureaucracy as well as suspicion of member countries of India. The forum was established with ambitious goal to 'promote the welfare of the people of South Asia and to improve their quality of life'. But in the past decades the forum has failed to accelerate economic growth and social progress to 'provide all individuals the opportunity to live in dignity and realise their full potential' thanks to lack of political will of South Asian politicians who represent more or less 1.5 billion people living in extreme or moderate poverty. The regional leaders always spoke of great things, but it has always been observed that mistrust among them, hostility over the notion of state security, an arms race among two nuclear-powers and protectionist approaches over trade and economic liberalisation have impeded cooperation among the seven neighbours. The teaming of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka under the charter of regional cooperation was seen as a way to solve the problems that the region encounters frequently. The forum identified basic areas of cooperation that includes agriculture and rural development, health and population issues; environment and forestry, science and technology and meteorology, human resource development and transport sector. Currently, intra-SAARC trade is less than three per cent of the trade volume of the eight member countries of Saarc although the region can be potentially the world's largest market. Bureaucrats were obsessed with perceived losses instead of maximising gains of every member of SAARC. Incidentally, a particular incident can change entire scenario of cooperation, that is - if inter-state relations are strained and rivalry between two nuclear powers - India and Pakistan - escalates. One positive outcome of the summit is that for the first time in SAARC history, it set some timeline for the member states to implement the decisions ahead of the next ministerial meeting. This is a new dimension in the SAARC process. The recent economic crisis in Europe and America had prompted the South Asian leaders and also China to understand the importance of the South Asian market. If the member states utilise the potentiality of the huge market, it will certainly bring changes in the trade and business scenario in the region and simultaneously create job opportunities. Most of the leaders supported the inclusion of China as a full member of SAARC as China has the experience of cooperation in another regional bloc - the ASEAN. China has more than one billion population at present. South Asian countries will be benefited from China's inclusion and none of them should oppose the move to offer China full membership as the concept of sovereignty has changed significantly. Sino-Indian annual trade volume currently stands at US $ 60 billion. China wants to raise it to US$200 billion. In the past, effective cooperation could not be built up in the region for lack of political will and bureaucratic complexities. The dream of an integrated South Asia remains elusive always. Such integration requires the political will and firm commitment of governments in a way it would not cause political tension, but enhance and insulate regional economic cooperation. Henceforth, South Asian leaders have to make a set of bold decisions to show their ability to realise the dreams of their peoples. As a matter of fact, the South Asian economy is set to suffer due to the global debt crisis that is spreading fast and taking the shape of a double-dip recession. The region was largely insulated from the 2008 global financial crisis because of fiscal stimulus. But this time all regional economies face some difficulties including soaring inflation, depreciation of local currencies, slowdown in export and remittance, hike in interest rate and climate change. However, South Asian countries could not improve efforts significantly at the outset of the global recovery processes, which might put some countries in trouble. As such, people in the region must rejuvenate the SAARC processes to fight poverty together and achieve strengths regarding economic stability. Recent volatility in capital flows and depreciation of local currencies against the dollar also affect the South Asian economy, including India. There should be greater transparency and regulation of futures and derivatives markets as well as regulation of conversion of food into bio-fuels. The rise in prices is not for demand pressure only, but also for increasing financialisation of commodity markets and speculative activity. As for Bangladesh, now is the time to boost connectivity, regional cooperation in power sector and joint management of river basin. The most important one is the transport connectivity and how to create an infrastructure, which will support trade and investment growth. Bangladesh had achieved significantly better in fighting poverty by executing social protection policy. The country had recently moved beyond bilateral relations and developed fresh ties with Nepal, Bhutan and India. Although the relationship between the two nations remained strained on several occasions in the past, India and Bangladesh recently enhanced efforts to establish connectivity. A deepening regional cooperation and fraternity among the countries in South Asia are required to tackle all these challenges. The agreements that had already been signed between the countries in the region should be implemented in right earnest. At the same time, new ideas should be taken for actions to materialise the potential benefits the region has. szkhan@dhaka.net