Cooperation
is the only way to cope with environmental disasters in the subcontinent as we
saw no result of non-cooperation and confrontation during more than six
decades, said Karamat Ali, executive director of the Pakistan Institute of
Labour Education and Research (PILER).
He was addressing the 15th Annual Sustainable Development
Conference (SDC) on ‘Sustainable Development in South Asia: Shaping the Future’
organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).
Speaking on traditional security threats, Karamat said that if we
want to deliver to the people of this unfortunate region, we will have to
cooperate to move towards honest, sincere cooperation, especially in managing
natural resources in sharing and not adversarial mode. He regretted that
undermining of Saarc was done by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh where forces in
each country are out to maintain conflict.
He exhorted to move quickly away from a situation in which one
dominant ethnic group and one dominating religion in all the three countries
and Sri Lanka is impeding democratisation. He called for secularising South
Asian societies to end the conception of minorities. He said that a tiny elite
of 5 to 10 per cent is controlling everything resulting in militarisation and
making the region biggest importer of arms in the world despite two having
nuclear bombs.
Tahir Dhindsa of SDPI said that international beneficiary systems
are directly integrated with the petroleum resources and sovereignty of the
states.
Khurram Javed from Diplomatic Academy, Azerbaijan, stressed on
implementation of IPI, TAPI and Trans-Caspian projects for initiating
development in the region.
Dr. Saba Gul Khattak, Member BoG, SDPI, said that at the heart of
the conflict lies in the difference of logic in politics and science and it
needs to work out at earliest.
Khurram Dastgir Khan, PML-N MNA, said that trade between India and
Pakistan presents immense gains for consumers and could be used as a catalyst
for solving other issues such as political disputes.
Dr Pervez Tahir, former chief economist, said that Pakistan and
India are two very different economies, and this fact needs to be realised
before formulating trade policies between the two countries.
Dr Yumei Zhang from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
observed that in last 30 years, infrastructures in China significantly improved
contributing to the fastest economic growth rate of 10%.
Mochan Bhattarai from Nepal said that political instability in
Nepal, like many other South Asian countries, is the biggest challenge while
undertaking Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
Stephen Commins from USA said that violent conflicts disrupt
livelihood and markets, which makes the people vulnerable to hunger and
malnourishment. Governments and the donor need to focus on restoring markets,
establishment of infrastructure, and revival of supply chain and market
mechanism, he said.
Dr Vaqar Ahmed, Anam Khan, Saad Rajput and Muhammad Adnan, Qasim
Shah from SDPI, Ali Khizar, Dr Babar Shahbaz, Dr Nadia Tahir, Naveed Iftikhar
and Geoff Woods of Bath University, UK, also spoke on the occasion.
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