Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, May 27

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is soon to have a Regional Poverty Profile (RPP) in a bid to bring the regional dimension of poverty to the forefront and facilitate governments to address poverty issues in a systematic and well-targeted manner.

SAARC leaders, during the 11th Summit held here in January, directed SAARC secretary-general to prepare a RPP, based on the information of the National Poverty Profiles of individual countries. The RPP will provide an instant and up-to-date picture of the poverty situation in each SAARC member country as well as recent trends and future projections.

Addressing the inaugural session of the three-day joint SAARC-UNDP workshop on preparation of regional profile here on Monday, SAARC secretary general Q A M A Rahim expressed hope that RPP will serve as a monitoring tool as far as the poverty scenario of SAARC member countries are concerned.

RPP, expected to be prepared every year, will focus on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving extreme poverty by 2015. This was adopted at the Millennium Summit in September 2000 and its realisation in SAARC context.

Highlighting the objective of the initiative, Rahim said that it would serve as an advocacy tool to stir policy makers into action and works as a policy tool to promote regional cooperation, especially with regard to designing regional programmes and projects for tackling poverty.

Although South Asia accounts for only 23 per cent of the world’s population, it houses 40 per cent of world’s poor and the absolute figures of poor people in South Asia exceed the poor of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab States, Latin America and the Caribbean added together.

Representatives of national and international institutions working in SAARC region are converging in Kathmandu to chalk out a format for the regional profile as well as identifying poverty-related indices.

Dr Henning Karcher, UNDP resident representative, speaking at the opening session of the workshop, hoped that the profile could play a critically important operation role in stirring countries and governments into action and triggering ultimately a release of significant resources for development in South Asia.

Empowerment is now recognised internationally as a key element for any poverty reduction strategy, Dr Karcher said. “Empowerment and social mobilisation has worked convincingly in transforming the lives of millions of people in South Asia”, he said.

It may be recalled that the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA), a decade ago suggested ‘social mobilisation’ as the main ‘mantra’ for poverty alleviation, which was subsequently endorsed by several SAARC summits.

Madhu Raman Acharya, acting foreign secretary at the ministry of foreign affairs highlighted the need of SAARC to manage domestic and external resources with prudence and efficiency and direct them onto the path of sustained economic growth and sustainable development.

It is, indeed, a matter of serious concern that poverty, hunger, diseases and hopelessness continue to blight the lives of millions of people of our region, he said adding that the three-day deliberations would be quite substantial and productive leading to effective and appropriate suggestions with significant bearing on poverty eradication efforts of SAARC region.

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