SAARC 2011: Why do we need regional cooperation?
Though South Asia was relatively late in evolving an institutional framework, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) is a name of hope and expectation for the people of South Asia. In spite of economic trouble, South Asia has significant potentialities for overall development. After the end of the Second World War, different types of functional institutions were created to ensure security, cooperation as well as economic development. Apart from the United Nations, to make the third world countries out of bloc politics, it was the need of the then time to establish an institutional body like the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), on the other hand, despite being aligned with the US bloc, the Western European states felt the necessity to establish another sort of institutional body that would ensure regional development which gradually led to the creation of the best instance of functionalism the European Union. Though the EU is considered the most effective model of regional integration because of free trade, free border and common currency, it had to face the huge challenges like satisfying the US in one hand and on the other hand to restore the economic capability in the post war period as well as to avoid chaos and conflict and maintaining smooth relationship with one another. The immense success of the EU was definitely one of the encouraging factors for the leaders of South Asia to be assembled under a common umbrella as paragraph 1 of the preamble of the Saarc Charter states, "Desirous of promoting peace, stability, amity and progress in the region through strict adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter and Non-Alignment, particularly respect for the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, national independence, non-use of force and non-interference in the internal affairs of other States and peaceful settlement of all disputes". At the same time paragraph 4 stresses the importance of regional cooperation which states "Convinced that regional cooperation among the countries of South Asia is mutually beneficial, desirable and necessary for promoting the welfare and improving the quality of life of the peoples of the region." So from the above view, it becomes clear that regional cooperation is the precondition to acquire acceptability from the great sphere. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, international politics took new shape in different manners but the weight of the regional cooperation did not reduce rather in many regard the regional bodies tightened their integrity for the sake of their own security in the uni-polar world structure. It was visible that after the end of cold war, economic development was the central focus through regionalism. Another significant factor in the post cold war international system is the vibrant presence of globalization which has obviously made the trade and investment that are considered the main areas of economic development of a country a complete trans-national factors for sustaining economic networking around the globe. In this respect, the South Asian countries started facing different problems for which in spite of having potentialities to ensure economic development they failed to secure the desired goals. There are different matters responsible for the poor rate of achievement through trade and investment which includes firstly, the existence of complimentary rather than competitive trade and absence of uniform economic structure to ensure competitiveness; secondly, the internal policy of trade restrictions of some of the countries are considered as barrier of trade liberalization without which the regional institutions will not be able to reach to their desired destination; thirdly, there are common tendencies of almost all the states of South Asia to maintain good relationship with the states outside the region and even depending on them for financial aid without cultivating within the own region; fourthly, though it is well recognized that connectivity is the pre-requisite for attaining mutual benefit through trade liberalization, the states though recognized the importance of it, yet to implement it; fifthly, the abovementioned limitations are the by-product of different other problems within the region like the problem of Kashmir, Siachen, illegal immigration, terrorism, sharing the waters of common rivers and trade and transit facilities and unless resolving these problems cooperation cannot be successful. Bilateral disputes among South Asian countries spill over into the regional domain in the form of distrust and hostility. As it has mentioned the importance of the regionalism and also it is realized that the development of institutional framework in South Asia started in late, in fact Saarc came into existence after thirty years of the birth of the European Community (1957, today's EU and twenty years of the establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), So comparing the other significant institutions in this regard Saarc is already behind and it should find out its own mechanism to make-up the deficits comparing with the same level bodies. There are many possible ways to make Saarc more effective than it is now. Firstly, since it is apparent to all that bi-lateral problems are the main blockages behind its successful operation, article 10(2) of Saarc charter should be abolished and a conflict management unit within the framework of Saarc can accelerate the spirit of Saarc; secondly, the Saarc countries can establish a Saarc Parliament to ensure the accountability of the member state as well as to make effective role in promoting the democratic institutions; thirdly, the matter of connectivity within the Saarc countries as consented by the members earlier should be implemented which will be very much helpful for enlarging the people-to-people cooperation and minimizing the differences as well; fourthly, establishing a Saarc working group within all the member states, will enable the policy level of the members to pick-up the burning issues related to regional as well as national development; fifthly, it is well recognized that terrorism and the negative consequences of global climatic change are the common problems for the Saarc countries, a greater consensus among the states regarding these issues will enable them fight against them. Finally, it is noticeable that though Saarc represents the expectations of the people of this region, the opinion of the people are not reflected in the summit level decisions, it is also relevant to mention here that not only the people, even the policy makers are not well informed yet about the tentative agenda of the summit level meeting. As this region represents one-fifth of the world population, desires of people must be included in such important Summit discussion.
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