Glass Half Full

Summits will come and summits will go but the abject poverty of South Asia will go on forever.

The 16th SAARC summit held in Thimphu, Bhutan on April 28 and 29 was important due to many reasons. It was the first time a small country like Bhutan had hosted the summit which was a good show of equality for all member nations of the South Asian body. Many issues were taken up for discussion in the summit of which the most prominent was climate change which is indeed a good step towards collective efforts in this regard.

Though, according to the SAARC charter, bilateral issues cannot be raised on its forum, still the world was anticipating the leaders of India and Pakistan to meet face to face after the Mumbai attacks. Although there was no official word from the two countries before the summit over any possible talks over bilateral issues, however, owing to the fact that in the past too the mere possibility of Indo-Pak high level meetings used to occupy a lot of space of the summit's unofficial or official agenda, some of the leaders have mentioned the importance of the summit in bringing the leaders of the two countries on the same table.

The President of Maldives, Mohammad Nasheed said, "The summit will lead to a greater dialogue between India and Pakistan." The heads of state of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan also expressed similar views.

The Indian and Pakistani leaders did meet and discussed post-Mumbai scenario, with the Indian PM demanding action against Lashkar-e-Taiba and chief of Jamaat-u-Dawa, Hafiz Saeed, as a condition for starting the conventional composite dialogue. The Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, emphasized de-linking terror from the talks and an immediate return to composite dialogue. However, India rejected this offer and no joint statement was issued.

It was the first meeting of both leaders after the one in Sharm-el-Sheikh in July 2009, which failed to bring a major change due to the attitude of the two. However, the positive side of the talks was that both sides agreed to keep the dialogue process open and decided to meet as soon as possible at foreign ministers and foreign secretary level.

One of the most significant events at the SAARC summit this year was the decision to take up the issue of climate change which is seriously challenging regional countries, including India and Maldives. In this regard a landmark decision was made of announcing a fund to meet the challenges of climate change and to cater to the needs of effective adaptation and capacity building of small nations. Though no proper action plan was drafted, this is an important initiative as all the nations of South Asia are facing serious threats of global warming, such as glacial melting, frequent cyclones, floods and droughts.

For Bhutan the holding of 16th SAARC summit was a success because significant steps have been announced to make progress towards a green South Asia which was also the theme of this year's summit. Other than climate change, the summit failed to address other grave issues like free trade, and above all terrorism-related concerns affecting almost all the regional players alike.

Although the leader of participating member countries acknowledged that bilateral issues are creating hurdles in the progress of the region and its 1.5 billion people but no concrete step has been taken to overcome these issues. No solid suggestion or practical step was recommended to look into the ways for stability and peace in the region.

The most neglected area is that of trade where the 16th SAARC summit failed to make any move as no progress took place on SAFTA (South Asia Free Trade Agreement). In the past, SAFTA was given more importance by SAARC countries but still nothing concrete came out, other than some initiatives taken by a few individual countries whereas at the last SAARC summit, this was ignored altogether.

Despite passage of 25 years, SAARC has failed to play any significant role in any area of concern to the member nations as rightly said by Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh that 25-year long journey of SAARC, is "a glass half empty."

The organization is far behind other regional organizations when compared to their progress and development. South Asia is the home of 1.5 billion people with 2/3rd of its population living on less then 2 dollars per day. In such a situation it should have played a strong role in finding practical ways towards resolving many challenges the region is facing.

The failure has set in mainly due to the attitude of India and Pakistan. Many bilateral issues between these countries have affected multilateral efforts and initiatives towards development. India-Pakistan relations have always overshadowed SAARC summits. This time too, the summit started with huge speculations of top level Indo-Pak meetings on the sidelines.

To meet the various challenges and to focus on core issues, such as poverty, food security, etc. India and Pakistan must play an important and effective role.

There is a need for dialogue among them and formulation of long term strategies by the members to resolve their differences and to deal with common issues.

South Asia can play a significant role in future in the international political and economic structure and SAARC can help shape and exploit this potential but only if the larger countries sincerely put their differences behind and work towards mutual progress of all member nations.

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