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Abstracts
Panel: Imagine a New South Asia: 25 years of SAARC
Intra-regional and inter-regional connectivity in South Asia: Imperatives and responses
Need to re-focus SAARC on an urban South Asia
South Asia: A model for social integration
Political and social challenges in South Asia: Focus on Pakistan
Intra-regional and inter-regional connectivity in South Asia: Imperatives and responses
Rashid Ahmad Khan*
Compared to other regional groupings such as EU and ASEAN, the South Asian region comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are the least integrated regions, despite having cultural similarities and common historical backgrounds. One example of this is the extremely dismal state of intra-regional trade and highly restrictive travel regime, especially between Pakistan and India. South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) has been in operation for the last four years, but intra-regional trade has barely exceeded five per cent of the total trade of the region. There is vast potential for tourism in the SAARC region but owing to poor connectivity this area has remained largely untapped. There is a strong need for expansion and stronger communication links but political differences have kept that process at bay. As a consequence, the region has lagged behind other regions in achieving the goals of regional integration.
However new initiatives are emerging within the region and outside, which will encourage the SAARC countries to promote not only intra-regional but also inter-regional connectivity to accelerate the process of regional cooperation and linkages. Within the region, the impressive performance of the Indian and Bangladeshi economies is generating a need for greater access to neighbouring markets and sources for energy. In the last two years, India, Bangladesh and Nepal have entered into a number of bilateral agreements aimed at promoting physical, economic and cultural connectivity. Outside the region, the phenomenal growth of China’s economy, especially the focus on development in the western regions, is leading to the opening of new, and improvement communication links with Pakistan and Nepal. The fact that so many states would like to attain Observer Status in SAARC confirms the credentials of SAARC as an international entity. Recognising the significance of these trends, SAARC has also urged the member countries to take steps for the promotion of regional connectivity.
This paper attempts to identify and analyze the emerging imperatives, within as well as outside the South Asian region for intra-regional and inter-regional connectivity and examine how SAARC countries are responding to these imperatives under their impact. The paper would also discuss the incentives and constraints in responses to the urgent need for connectivity with a view to examining future prospects. The paper is based on library research and will use a descriptive and analytical approach. The texts of the agreements between the governments, joint statements and communiqués, newspaper reports, articles, comments and works by specialists in regional connectivity will be used as source material.
 *Dr. Rashid Ahmad Khan is Professor and Chairman, Department of International Relations/Political Science, Dean, Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Law, University of Sargodha, Pakistan.
Need to re-focus SAARC on an urban South Asia
Faisal Haq Shaheen*
Urban areas are growing rapidly, inequitably and unsustainably across the Global South, resulting in the proliferation of slum communities and surging informal sectors (IS)[1]. In South Asia, more Meta cities are forecasted to surge in population, given neoliberal policy failures, inequitable municipal development, ad hoc planning and continued rural to urban migration. The vitality of cities and specifically the condition of the IS should be incorporated into regional institutional forums, namely SAARC. Social development, balanced planning, resource sharing, economic growth and human security are interlinked with the IS. The success of community based models, testament to the feasibility of bottom up development, are now emerging in the alternative development literature[2]. This study assesses the role that SAARC, in partnership with South Asian municipal authorities and state agencies could play in engaging the IS[3].
As a regional institution whose member states will have to confront a growing IS, a case for comparative institutional capacities is made at the lowest levels of the society, where state and non state actors engage the IS. Firstly, a survey of the regions state and non-state actors[4] is made, in terms of their ability to engage the IS across South Asia. Secondly, the role of upper and lower tiered state actors is assessed to understand the processes, constraints and possible solutions to engaging the IS. The study's findings suggest that the combination of grassroots civil society efforts in mobilising the urban IS alongside the provision of well resourced, accountable capacities of lower tiers of municipal government can generate low cost sustainable solutions to urban service delivery. Evidence also points to the benefits of civil society’s engagement with lower tiers of government to ensure that upper-level bureaucrats are held accountable for ill-conceived policies and their failures. Administrative case studies of successful IS engagement, which could be the basis of regional knowledge sharing across the Global South, are then outlined.
 *Faisal Haq Shaheen is a PhD candidate at Ryerson University’s Policy Science Program. He is also a Business Management Analyst with the Municipality of Toronto and serves as a Visiting Research Associate at SDPI.
[1] Ironically, the media acclaim of India’s ‘Slum dog Millionaire’ is now matched with socio economic attention that many communities in the Global North are receiving, in light of the prolonged recession which has exposed the vulnerability and dilapidation of urban communities across North America, such as Detroit.
[2] While market based solutions, spread through the not for profit sector (rural support, micro credit), have received much acclaim, a need is highlighted for administrative capacity and capability comparison (bench marking) across the region. The self help models of water and sanitation (Karachi’s OPP, Pune’s public toilets) and incremental housing (Karachi’s SAIBAN and Sindh’s SKAA) are expanded upon as case studies, along with others from the region.
[3] By examining the prominence and activities of think tanks, policy organizations and agencies in Northern (Cities Centre, Cities Indicators Project) and Southern (UN World Urban Forum) contexts, the functionality of a SAARC based agency is made to network between municipal resource centers such as Punjab’s Urban Unit and Sindh’s Urban Resource Centre.
[4] From national to provincial and municipal levels across South Asia will be included and examined.
South Asia: A model for social integration
Avanish Kumar*
What is meant by integration, and what is the source of imagination? “In its essence, the term ‘integration’ implies the linking of individuals and groups that would otherwise be separated by national borders…despite the high level of economic integration” (McDonald 2009, p. 17). While imagination is an assumed state of affairs in a given time-policy framework. This assumption is based on the experiential knowledge of past and available resources to cope with the emerging global and local demand. However, the validity of this imagination and integration is extremely dependent on the ability to manage the available resources towards inclusive growth within countries and region.
While the shared interest in social integration offers hope for increased collaboration, there are significant challenges that must be satisfied for this integration to happen. We need a policy paradigm that connects the contributions of the various diverse countries into one whole---making them synergistic. In this regards, understanding of social integration processes and products of the European Union (EU), provides a real life laboratory for SAARC countries. EU countries are also heterogeneous in socio-political and economic context. To a large extent, despite the high level of economic integration in the EU, it continues to live in national social spaces due to language, geography, and history. “What is more, the EU has started to foster its external role as to social standards. The threefold situation of the EU (a mix of internal reforms, an increasing awareness of the EU’s socio-economic specificities, and external dimensions in the making) is novel and quite unique in the history” (Goetschy 2009, p. 41). This does not imply losing national identity. But it does suggest a path towards realising the strength of an efficient positive complimentary, cohesive and cumulative strategy which is a challenge faced by all the SAARC countries.
SAARC collaborative efforts primarily revolve around poverty, peace, and economic progress, “collective regional efforts to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development and emphasized on key issues like telecommunication, energy, climate change, transport, poverty alleviation, science and technology, trade, education, food security and tourism” (SAARC 2009). In this context, during the 13th SAARC Summit, the SAARC Development Goals (SDGs) as recommended by the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA) were approved. The report “Taking SDGs Forward” insists on concentrated and collaborative efforts to reduce social and spatial imbalance in the progress of the MDGs (ISACPA 2007). As large populous countries, the world will not meet its Millennium Development Goals (MDG) unless there is much greater focus and strong commitment to meet the MDGs in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
In last two decades, South Asia has also made significant growth due to the increasing role of the private sector. But the current growth strategies face challenges of extreme social and spatial inequalities. These countries are characterised by rising social and spatial inequality, widespread underemployment, especially among the youth and inadequate social sector expenditures, which pose serious challenges to the achievement socio-economic goals (see also Zhuan 2010). To cope with these challenges, South Asia requires twofold policy reforms. The SAARC Development Framework (SDF) provides strategic outcome framework, while internal national policy reforms are required for making these outcomes sustainable. In this direction, SDF framework has to extend towards opening and making market more transparent, strengthening local political institutions to converse with the global corporate giants; creating knowledge society and improving infrastructure. According to Ahmed and Ghani (2007), the key risks to the current growth in South Asia is posed by high cost of doing business, weak institutions, low level of investment on knowledge creation and infrastructure.
Policy advocacy towards this direction will largely depend on sustainable transnational media and civil society partnership. An increasing transnational media-civil society partnership for creating well informed and knowledgeable membership towards benefits of socio-economic integration is very critical as a catalyst. In past twenty years, there have been several initiatives towards political cooperation between India and Pakistan.; as well as bi-lateral trade agreements between the nations. “Recent studies indicate that smaller trade gains in South Asia is mainly due to the fact that inadequate attention was paid to trade facilitation measures such as efficiency of customs and other border procedures, quality of transport, and cost of international and domestic transport” (Weerahewa 2009, p. 4). According to Balakrishna (2003), there are two important policy directions. These two policy directions revolve around quick approval of proposals for foreign direct investment (FDI) and the removal of business barriers. While several studies (Weerahewa 2009; Panagariya 2007) indicate that “there exists room to expand bilateral trade by reducing trade costs and time delays in South Asian countries” (Weerahewa 2009, p.20; see also Ahmed and Ghani 2007).
Lastly, there is a need for convergence of scientific and local realities of short and long-term interests on governance and globalisation that are largely being shaped by external forces such as market, health, disasters and technologies. Often studies on governance and globalisation are limited in their scope and direction for future strategies. Like EU, SAARC requires transforming common policies and politics of economy and empowerment. The integration model can be further sustained by introducing a strategic mix of emotions and economics towards incremental value chain creation for the individual countries and their people. According to Robinson and Ritchie (2010, p.1), “for the larger units of society, relationships matters because they influence the adoption of laws, economic activities, care of the environment, and with whom we write treaties and go to war.” More open and frequent bi and multilateral mobility of products and people will promote equitable and efficient benefit distribution by reducing unnecessary cost of national margins. More than ever, South Asia integration is not an option, but an imperative emerging as a need and demand for national, regional and global sustainable growth.
References:
Balakrishnan, Pulapre 2003, ‘Globalisation, growth and justice’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 38, no. 30 (Jul. 26 - Aug. 1), pp. 3166-3172.
Goetschy B. 2009, ‘Social Europe facing globalisation-Assets and challenges for the European Social Model’, in Labour, education and society: European social integration- A model for East Asia, Szell Gyorgy, Werner Kamppeter and Woosik Moon (eds.), pp. 41-57, Petr Lang GmbH, Krankfurt.
ISACPA 2007, ‘SAARC Development Goals (SDGs) 2007-2012’, Independent South Asian Commission On Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA), March.
MacDonald B. 2009, ‘The European Union’, in Labour, education and society: European social integration- A model for East Asia, Szell Gyorgy, Werner Kamppeter and Woosik Moon (eds.), pp. 17-21, Petr Lang GmbH, Krankfurt.
SAARC 2009, ‘SAARC Brochure/Brief’, viewed on 24 Nov. 2010 < http://www.saarc-sec.org/uploads/publications/file/Brief%20on%20SAARC%202009%20brochure_20100508123840.pdf>
Sadiq, Ahmed and Ghani, Ejaz (eds.) 2007, ‘South Asia: Growth and regional integration’, MacMillan India Ltd, viewed on 24 November 2010, <http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT
/0,,contentMDK:21224087~pagePK:2865106~piPK:2865128~theSitePK:223547,00.html.>
Weerahewa, Jeevika, 2009, ‘Impact of trade facilitation measures and regional trade agreements on food and agricultural trade in South Asia’, Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT), Working Paper Series no. 69, June.
Zhuan, Juzhong, 2010, ‘Poverty, inequality and inclusive growth in Asia: Measurement, policy issues and country studies’, Anthem Press, New York.
*Dr. Avanish Kumar is the Associate Professor and Area Chairperson, Public Policy Management Area at the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India.
Political and social challenges in South Asia: Focus on Pakistan
Tahir Mahmood Azad*
South Asia is considered the most volatile region in the world. Today, South Asian societies are extremely polarised along gender, economic, geographic, religious, and ethnic lines. Religion and ethnicity are the root causes of conflicts. People are more concerned with their personal affairs rather than national interests. A fraudulent political culture and unrest in civil societies have clogged social development.
Population explosion, highest level of illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, weak political system, injustice and corruption, deficits in energy and infrastructure and issues arising out of global warming are the major challenges to South Asia. All these factors have given birth to an atrocious challenge ‘terrorism’. If these challenges are not controlled in the near future, there exists the possibility of civil war in South Asian states. Pakistan and India are the two major powers of South Asia. Their rivalry has also affected regional peace since the arms race between them has challenged the position of other small neighbouring states. The Kashmir dispute is considered the main cause of conflict, but ideological differences have also been visible at every stage.
Personal interests of big powers in South Asia have also disturbed regional security. The ‘War on Terror’ in Afghanistan has also ruined regional peace particularly affecting the Pakistan which is facing a most difficult period dealing with challenges in every field. Due to lack of good governance and efficient leadership, the country is destabilised and the situation is getting worse day by day.
Given the above, there is need for regional cooperation and understanding each other’s values. Rather than depending on other powers to solve matters and conflicts, it is necessary to trust each other. There is a need to revise political and social structures. The role of SAARC in this regard can be very important and effective. This platform can give better results.
* Tahir Mahmood Azad is a Research Scholar at the National Defence University, Islamabad.
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