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Focus on food security, natural disasters, trade,
customs and good governance:
All set for 17th SAARC Summit in Addu
By Manjula FERNANDO
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President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the 16th SAARC summit
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The 17th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
summit that will be inaugurated in Addu Atoll, Maldives this week will
ink several deals covering the areas food security, collective response
in natural disasters as well as trade, customs and good governance.
This year’s summit appropriately titled “Building Bridges” by the
host nation, strives to improve communication and collaboration among
the eight members of the South Asian grouping namely Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the
Maldives.
The main focus of the summit, the SAARC heads of state meeting, will
be inaugurated on November 10 and conclude the next day preceded by
Ministerial and foreign secretaries meetings that will begin from
November 6. At the Foreign Secretaries meeting on November 7 and 8 the
agendas of the summit and declaration will be finalised. The meeting of
Council of Ministers will be on November 9.
This year eight countries, US, Japan , China, Australia, Iran, South
Korea, Mauritius and Myanmar and the 25 member European Union will
attend the summit as observers.
Over the years, there has been a growing interest among many
countries and organisations to be associated with SAARC as Observers and
to engage with SAARC in collaborative endeavours. Since the 13th SAARC
Summit in Dhaka, from November 12 – 13, 2005, requests by a number of
countries and one intergovernmental organisation to be associated with
SAARC as Observers was welcomed. Some of the observers have submitted
proposals to engage in mutually beneficial cooperation and a few are
under implementation, according to the SAARC Secretariat.
Three key agreements
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Lankan sniffer dogs Courtesy Haveeruonline |
The Foreign Ministry’s SAARC Desk said the summit this year will see
signing of three key agreements among the member states.
The SAARC Charter of Democracy will call for promoting democratic
practices among Governments within the region. Sri Lanka is a strong
advocate of the Charter.
An agreement on Rapid Response to Natural Disasters will be the
second agreement that will be sealed at the 17th meeting of the regional
grouping.
This effort has been mooted considering the region’s increasing
susceptibility to natural disasters and in line with the Thimphu
declaration that called for commissioning a SAARC inter-governmental
climate related disasters initiative.
An agreement on establishing a ‘seed bank’ as part of efforts to
ensure food security within the region will also be signed during the
Addu summit.
There will be at least two more trade and customs related deals.
According to Maldivian news reports Maldivian offcials will clamp down a
tight security blanket in the city of Addu during the SAARC summit since
many heads of state including that of Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and
Afghanistan face serious security threats due to domestic terrorism
issues.
Six Sri Lankan sniffer dog teams have been dispatched to the city of
Addu to be in charge of VVIP security.
The Joint Inter Agency Task Force Commander, Colonel Mohamed Ziyad
was quoted in Haveeruonline as saying earlier that six teams, each
having one sniffer dog, will come to the Maldives from Sri Lanka for the
summit to be held in Addu and Fuvahmulah from November 10-11.
The sniffer dogs will be deployed in and around the convention
centre, the venue of the summit, the residences of heads of states and
the roads.
The Maldives will be hosting the Summit meeting of the SAARC Heads of
State or Governments for the third time, having earlier hosted the Fifth
and Ninth Summit meetings in 1990 and 1997 respectively.
The 16h SAARC Summit held in Thimpu, Bhutan in April 2010 was devoted
to the theme, Climate Change. Nepal has decided in principle to host the
18th SAARC Summit in the first half of 2013. The SAARC Charter (Article
III) states that the Heads of State or Government shall meet once a year
or more often as and when considered necessary by the member states.
However, the summit is usually being convened in a gap of one-and-a-half
years.
Headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal SAARC is an organisation of South
Asian nations, founded in December 1985 and dedicated to economic,
technological, social and cultural development emphasising collective
self-reliance. Its seven founding members are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India,
the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan joined the
organisation in 2005.
The 11 stated areas of cooperation are agriculture; education,
culture, and sports; health, population, and child welfare; the
environment and meteorology; rural development (including the SAARC
Youth Volunteers Program); tourism; transport; science and technology;
communications. Sri Lanka hosted the 15th SAARC summit in Colombo in
July 2008 at which regional cooperation in combatting terrorism took
centre stage among other issues including food security, social
development and economic growth.
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Landmark SAARC
agreements and conventions
Agreements
 *South Asian Free Trade Area
(SAFTA) – Promotes and enhances mutual trade and economic
cooperation among the Contracting States, through the
granting of concessions in accordance with this Agreement.
SAFTA would be based and
applied on the principles of overall reciprocity and
mutuality of advantages to benefit equitably all Contracting
States, taking into account their respective levels of
economic and industrial development, the pattern of their
external trade and tariff policies and systems.
*Agreement on Avoidance of
Double Taxation and Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax
Matters – Calls upon all parties to promote economic
cooperation among SAARC Member States
*South Asian Regional
Standards Organization (SARSO) – Promotes and undertakes
harmonisation of national standards of the SAARC Member
States with a view to removing the technical barriers to
trade and facilitate the flow of goods and services in the
region.
The objectives include
developing SAARC standards on the products of regional and
sub-regional interest, to encourage the use of international
standards published by international organisations such as
ISO and IEC by way of adoption, where appropriate, as SAARC
Standards, to encourage exchange of information and
expertise among the national standard bodies of the Member
States in the fields of Standardisation and Conformity
Assessment, to facilitate capacity building among the Member
States in the fields of standardisation and conformity
assessment by way of training, workshops and seminars.
*SAARC Food Bank – This was
set up recognising the importance of regional and
sub-regional collective self-reliance with respect to food
security as a means of combating the adverse effects of
natural and man-made calamities.
*SAARC Arbitration Council –
Expected to create conditions favourable for fostering
greater investments by investors of one Member State in the
territory of another Member State and to provide a regional
forum for settlement of commercial disputes by conciliation
and arbitration;
*Agreement on Mutual
Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters – Calls on
parties to promote the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA),
action against customs offences by close co-operation
between their customs administrations and facilitate
intra-regional trade.
Conventions:
*SAARC Convention on
Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children
for Prostitution - Promotes cooperation among Member States
so that they may effectively deal with the various aspects
of prevention, interdiction and suppression of trafficking
in women and children; the repatriation and rehabilitation
of victims of trafficking and preventing the use of women
and children in international prostitution networks,
particularly where the countries of the SAARC region are the
countries of origin, transit and destination.
*SAARC Regional Convention
on Suppression of Terrorism - Due to the danger posed by the
spread of terrorism and its harmful effects on peace,
cooperation, friendship and good neighbourly relations which
could also jeopardise the sovereignty and territorial
integrity of states
*Convention on Promotion of
Welfare of Children – It was noted in bringing the
Convention that a quarter of the world’s children live in
South Asia and many of them require assistance and
protection to secure and fully enjoy their rights, and to
develop to their full potential and lead a responsible life
in family and society
*Convention on Mutual
Assistance on Criminal Matters – It has noted the rising
trends in criminal acts including organised crime, and has
determined to effectively curb the commission of such acts,
both national and transnational, in drafting the Convention
by the Member States.
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