SAARC

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an organisation of South Asian nations, founded in December 1985 by Ziaur Rahman and dedicated to economic, technological, social, and cultural development emphasising collective self-reliance. Its seven founding members are Sri Lanka, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Afghanistan joined the organization in 2005. Meetings of heads of state are usually scheduled annually; meetings of foreign secretaries, twice annually. It is headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal. SAARC is a manifestation of the determination of the people of the South Asia to work together in a sprit of friendship, trust and understanding and to create an order based on mutual respect, equity and shared benefits. The 16 stated areas of cooperation are agriculture and rural, biotechnology, culture, energy, environment, economy and trade, finance, funding mechanism, human resource development, poverty alleviation, people to people contact, security aspects, social development, science and technology, communications, and tourism.

HISTORY
The concept of SAARC was first adopted by Bangladesh during 1977, under the administration of President Ziaur Rahman. In the late 1970s, SAARC nations agreed upon the creation of a trade bloc consisting of South Asian countries. The idea of regional cooperation in South Asia was again mooted in May 1980. The foreign secretaries of the seven countries met for the first time in Colombo in April 1981. The Committee of the Whole, which met in Colombo in August 1985, identified five broad areas for regional cooperation.

OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the Association as defined in the Charter are: to promote the welfare of the people of South Asia and to improve their quality of life to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and to provide all individuals the opportunity to live in dignity and to realize their full potential to promote and strengthen selective self-reliance among the countries of South Asia to contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another's problems; to promote active collaboration and mutual assistance in the economic, social, cultural, technical and scientific fields to strengthen cooperation with other developing countries to strengthen cooperation among themselves in international forums on matters of common interest and to cooperate with international and regional organisations with similar aims and purposes.

Principles
The principles are:

Respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, political equality and independence of all members states Non-interference in the internal matters is one of its objectives Cooperation for mutual benefit All decisions to be taken unanimously and need a quorum of all eight members

All bilateral issues to be kept aside and only multilateral(involving many countries) issues to be discussed without being prejudiced by bilateral issues

Afghanistan was added to the regional grouping on 13 November 2005, With the addition of Afghanistan, the total number of member states were raised to eight (8). In April 2006, the United States of America and South Korea made formal requests to be granted observer status. The European Union has also indicated interest in being given observer status, and made a formal request for the same to the SAARC Council of Ministers meeting in July 2006. On 2 August 2006 the foreign ministers of the SAARC countries agreed in principle to grant observer status to the US, South Korea and the European Union. On 4 March 2008, Iran requested observer status. Followed shortly by the entrance of Mauritius.

Secretariat
The SAARC Secretariat was established in Kathmandu on 16 January 1987 and was inaugurated by Late King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah of Nepal. It is headed by a Secretary General appointed by the Council of Ministers from Member Countries in alphabetical order for a three-year term. He is assisted by the Professional and the General Services Staff, and also an appropriate number of functional units called Divisions assigned to Directors on deputation from Member States. The Secretariat coordinates and monitors implementation of activities, prepares for and services meetings, and serves as a channel of communication between the Association and its Member States as well as other regional organizations. The Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of the Secretariat which was signed by Foreign Ministers of member countries on 17 November 1986 at Bangalore, India contains various clauses concerning the role, structure and administration of the SAARC Secretariat as well as the powers of the Secretary-General.

In several recent meetings the heads of state or government of member states of SAARC have taken some important decisions and bold initiatives to strengthen the organisation and to widen and deepen regional co-operation.

Regional Centres
The SAARC Secretariat has established various regional centres in member states. The 13th being SAARC Arbitration Council established at Islamabad in 2010. Each regional centre is managed by a governing board. The GB has representatives of each of the member state and SAARC Secretariat.

Political issues
SAARC has intentionally laid more stress on "core issues" mentioned above rather than more divisive political issues like the Kashmir dispute and the Sri Lankan civil war. However, political dialogue is often conducted on the margins of SAARC meetings. SAARC has also refrained from interfering in the internal matters of its member states. During the 12th and 13th SAARC summits, extreme emphasis was laid upon greater cooperation between the SAARC members to fight terrorism.

South Asian Free Trade Area

Over the years, the SAARC members have expressed their unwillingness on signing a free trade agreement. Though India has several trade pacts with Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, similar trade agreements with Pakistan and Bangladesh have been stalled due to political and economic concerns on both sides. In 1993, SAARC countries signed an agreement to gradually lower tariffs within the region, in Dhaka. Eleven years later, at the 12th SAARC Summit at Islamabad, SAARC countries devised the South Asia Free Trade Agreement which created a framework for the establishment of a free trade

area covering 1.6 billion people. This agreement went into force on January 1, 2006. Under this agreement, SAARC members will bring their duties down to 20 per cent by 2009.

SAARC Human Resource Development Center

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is a manifestation of the determination of the peoples of South Asia to work together towards finding solutions to their common problems in a spirit of friendship, trust and understanding. The main objective of the association is to accelerate the process of economic and social development in Member States through joint action in the agreed areas of cooperation. The Heads of the States are Governments of SAARC Member Countries emphasized the need to progressively carry out the SAARC activities with a broad framework of a long term perspective and to harmonize their effects to ensure tangible benefits to the people of the SAARC region. Towards this end, they recognized that HRD is one of the means of realizing the SAARC objectives. They agreed to establish the SAARC Human Resource Development Centre (SHRDC) with main object to undertake research, impart training and disseminate information on HRD related issues and advise the Member States on HRD related policies and strategies. The Government of Pakistan offered to host the Centre at Islamabad in Pakistan.

Area of Cooperation
Agriculture and Rural

Agriculture continues to key constituent in each South Asian economy in respect of employment as also contribution to national GDP. In some countries though Agricultures share in GDP may be diminishing in terms of its share in GDP, in terms of employment and centrality in rural economies, farm and non-farm sector, premised on basic farming as also engaging the large majority of small and marginal farming households, agricultures role in the SAARC Member States is projected to remain the key to driving overall national economic growth and wellbeing of its people.

From the very inception of SAARC, regional cooperation within the Association on agriculture and rural development has therefore been in focus. In the preformative stage of the Association, as early as in September 1981, a meeting of the Study Group for Agriculture was convened in Dhaka. That was followed by two meetings of the Working Group on Agriculture followed (March and December, 1982) and the first Meeting of SAARC Technical Committee on Agriculture (Dhaka, Nov. 1983). A number of meetings /interaction at the technical level e.g. counterpart scientists (on multi-location trial), application of statistics in agriculture research, exchange of scientific/technical information, potato programme followed till SAARC took off in its formal manner by the end of 1985.
Biotechnology

The need to institutionalize and promote cooperation in the area of Biotechnology has been recognized by the Heads of State or Government at various SAARC Summits since 1990. From 1990-2003, cooperation the area of Biotechnology was pursued by the Technical Committee on Science and Technology. A Working Group on Biotechnology was established in 2004 as a part of the restructured SAARC Integrated Programme of Action to coordinate regional cooperation in the area of Biotechnology.
Culture

The regional cooperation in the field of culture started with the First Meeting of the Technical Committee on Sports, Arts and Culture held in New Delhi in January 1989. Since then it has been an important area of cooperation among SAARC countries. The Tenth Summit recognized the profound cultural continuum of South Asia as a historical basis for sustaining harmonious relations among the peoples of the region and welcomed the offer of Sri Lanka to host a meeting of Ministers of Cultural Affairs with the objective, inter alia, of establishing a South Asian Cultural Centre. A preparatory meeting o the Secretaries of Cultural Affairs was held in Colombo in November 2001, which recommended practical measures, among others, for protection, conservation and maintenance of cultural and pilgrimage sites; development of archaeology and musicology; encouragement of contemporary arts and culture; engaging the corporate sector and non-state

organizations in cultural activities; and developing cooperative links with UN and other regional institutions.