The New Nation - Internet Edition

The 15th summit meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) began at the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on Saturday against the backdrop of food and fuel insecurity and threats of terrorism and climate change, with leaders of its 8 member countries promising effective cooperation to fight hunger and achieve faster economic growth to improve the lifestyle of their impoverished people.

The 14th Saarc Summit held in the Indian capital New Delhi had taken decisions to establish a Saarc Development Fund (SDF), a South Asian University, a Saarc Food Bank and a Saarc Arbitration Council. The SDF and the agreement to establish a regional food bank to help meet emergency food crisis in the region were steps indicating the desire to take the Saarc to a meaningful phase.

However, the seemingly harmless decision to create a Saarc Food Bank taken at the Delhi summit, did not come true and the member countries, especially Bangladesh, failed to procure rice as per requirement at the hour of need last year when two successive rice crops were damaged in flood and cyclone.

While the process of some of the decisions taken in New Delhi had been initiated at the 13th SAARC summit held in Dhaka, the Delhi Declaration stood to promote peace and development in the region through greater connectivity in trade, movement of people and flow of ideas. Little has been achieved of the decisions.

Food and fuel insecurity and threats of terrorism and climate change may influence the decisions to be adopted at the Colombo meet. What the 1.5 billion people of the region however want are not high sounding proclamations but concrete actions that can benefit them materially.

The failure of the groups to bring about regional integration has increased skepticism about its ability to deliver with the biggest partner India eying at the global stage for both economic and political game planning and seven other members limping far behind. The eight-member Saarc has not been able to devise some ways and means to resolve or minimise disputes between and among them.

At the Saarc level bilateral matters cannot be taken up although leaders attending summits take plenty of opportunities to have bilateral meetings without intervention of third parties. The nations of the region have not yet succeeded to plan a roadmap to economic integration as other regional groups like the Asean and the European Union have achieved, then to forge ahead also for integration on other fronts.

When the concept of Saarc was mooted in the late seventies in Dhaka, five small nations, according to experts, were more eager to see a platform from where they could speak on a footing of sovereign equality against the biggest neighbour - India. Both India and Pakistan, on the other hand, had joined the group with hesitation as the former was aware of the undertone while the latter doubted if the whole thing was a move sponsored by its arch rival India.

Although the scenario has now much changed with the globe moving from the cold war era to one marked by instability and uncertainty on all fronts, trade activities within the region have not expanded at the desired pace and confidence building measures are still awaited to remove mutual suspicion from the minds of neighbours.

Would the global threats of food and fuel insecurity exacerbated by the threat of climate change instill a sense of urgency among the leaders of the eight Saarc nations of the region to move faster and achieve the cherished dream of a shared future for the peoples of South Asia? This is the pertinent question that keen observers want to be addressed for the Saarc summit to raise the group from its pariah state to one of a mighty regional grouping.