SAARC Summit, 2011

The 17th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was held at the Addu atoll in Maldives.

In its 26th year, SAARC has finally taken the shape of a cohesive grouping of nations willing to cooperate in key areas to boost their economic clout. The Addu Declaration that the leaders agreed upon focused on the theme of “Building Bridges.” The leaders committed to work towards a huge boost in intra-SAARC trade, improving air, rail, motor and water transport connectivity between member countries and putting their heads together to solve common developmental concerns. Four agreements were also signed that included a rapid response mechanism to deal with natural disasters, an agreement to establish a SAARC Seed Bank and two agreements on harmonising regional standards for goods and products.

Yet, SAARC still has a long way to go. Many of the leaders complained that while there were plenty of big ideas to move ahead, implementation of these had been slow. As Pakistan’s Gilani said, “The gap between the promises made at SAARC and the reality needs to be bridged.”

Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa echoed similar sentiments when he said at the plenary, “What is evident around us is a mood of urgency and even impatience. This is especially so because a large and influential part of our societies consists of young people inspired by new ideas and looking forward with enthusiasm to a promising future for themselves. They cannot be kept waiting for long. Their patience is not infinite.”

Sensing the mood, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced that in a major effort to liberalise trade in the region, India had issued a notification to reduce the sensitive list under the South Asian Free Trade Area Agreement (SAFTA) from 480 tariff lines to just 25 for the five Least Developed Countries (LDC) of the region—Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Maldives. He said that zero basic customs duty access will be given to all items removed with immediate effect.

The main reason why SAARC has met with only moderate success is that it has tried to do many things that has resulted in somewhat diffusing its focus. Experts feel that it should focus on key areas such as trade liberalisation and making SAFTA a reality, improving connectivity through transport by having air, rail and motor vehicles agreements and taking steps to enhance agricultural productivity and ensuring food security. The Addu declaration rightly emphasises these priorities and needs to be urgently implemented.