Common Currency, Visa for SAARC Region Suggested

19 May 2007: Dhaka


Politicians, educationists, economists, social activists of the South Asian region under a common platform ‘Imagine a New South Asia’ (INSA) urged the SAARC leaders to make a common currency and visa procedure for the people of this region.

They underscored the need for making a collective vision and mission to promote more policy convergence on key issues, more regional cooperation initiative at the government as well as the civil society level. It seeks to promote the vision of a peaceful, prosperous, democratic, free and fair South Asia.

They urged all to come forward to decrease inequality, social and political conflicts among the leaders of the South Asian region.

This was urged at a roundtable on ‘Towards a New South Asia: Working Out Strategies’ jointly organised by Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad (BUP), Indian Social Institute (ISI), Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) of Pakistan and NGO Federation of Nepal in partnership with ActionAid International held at BRAC Centre Inn in the city yesterday.

Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, Chairman of BUP and President of Bangladesh Economic Association, chaired the session, while Dr Jimmy Dhabi of ISI, Dr Timsina Netra of Nepal NGO Federation, Dr Abid Suleri of SDPI, Naveed Qamar, MP and former finance minister of Pakistan, Ahmad Salim, writer from Pakistan, Prof P Lama of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Member of Economic Management Thematic Task Force of India, Prof Nav R Kanel of Tribhuban University of Nepal, among others, spoke on the occasion.

Speakers said there are signs of hope amidst deprivation with mass people in Nepal marching the country to establish democracy, claiming rights over natural resources in Narmada in India, asserting share of farmers in public utilities in Kansat in Bangladesh. Such processes of reclaiming rights through collective movements signal the coming of a charge where the citizens of the South Asia can aspire to form a collective vision for a vibrant united South Asia free from hunger and deprivation.

In the economic management of the South Asia region, they outlined a roadmap to achieve a common economic framework and identify institutions needed to overcome common obstacles such as poverty, hunger and barriers to access natural resources and regional economic framework.

They suggested mechanism for utilisation of energy, water and forest resources on regional basis to maximise benefit for the people as a whole and alternative policy framework in ensuring sustainable environment including policy responses to climate change.

Speakers suggested mechanism of check and balance among the judiciary, legislative and the executive body to look into with an aim to reform the two hundred years’ old common colonial rules and regulations in the research on human rights, democracy and governance.

They also suggested ways, means and structures of institutions needed to break away from the politics of exclusion to an inclusive South Asia by focusing on issues such as conflicts, militarisation, ethnicity, caste and religious fanaticism in the research on peace and justice.

Link : The New Nation