Publication details

• Thursday | 27 Jun, 2013
• Vaqar Ahmed, Fayyaz Yaseen, Afsheen Naz, Imrana Niazi, Muhammad Zeshan, Muhammad Sohaib, Safwan A.Khan, Muhammad Adnan
• Research Reports,Project Publications
• 402

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Facilitators  Imrana Niazi Fayaz Yaseen Muhammad Shoaib Sofwan A.Khan Muhammad Zeshan Saad Rajput Afsheen Naz

A Background to South Asia Economic Summit

While there have been instances in South Asian history when the governments of SAARC member countries found themselves in a political deadlock, however a significant development in the region has been the rise of civil society organizations working towards regional integration, many of whom have culminated in to think tanks of global repute.

These organizations help to keep the national governments on track as regards the multifarious nature of issues involving regional cooperation. Many of such issues go well beyond politics and economics and include concerns like food security and livelihoods, climate change induced natural disasters, migration, connectivity of people and places, energy and water cooperation etc.

In the same spirit South Asia Economic Summit (SAES) was launched in 2008 with the objective of bringing together leading academics, practitioners of public policy, members of business community and related stakeholders to discuss regional approach to issues of mutual concern and also to learn from home grown solutions to common predicaments that can be replicated elsewhere in South Asia. Over the past few years it will not be an exaggeration to say that this event has become the ‘South Asian Davos’ following the example of World Economic Forum at Davos. A brief summary of these summits is given below.

The SAES is organized in a manner that its observations and recommendations can be framed for the SAARC Summit led by Heads of member countries. Many of the participants of SAES are actively involved (through the auspices of national governments) in the negotiation process that takes the SAARC agenda forward. 

The civil society think tanks from South Asia who participate every year in organizing the event include Sustainable Development Policy Institute (Pakistan), Institute of Policy Studies (Sri Lanka), Research and Information System for Developing Countries (India), South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (Nepal), South Asia Center for Policy Studies (Nepal), Center for Policy Dialogue (Dhaka).

The rest of this document will provide sector-wise recommendations provided by experts who attended the Summit in Islamabad. Many of these recommendations have been taken up by SAARC or member countries however their complete implementation still requires sustained effort. We hope that this document will provide an impetus to the overall agenda of South Asian integration.