Kathmandu, August 8:

Experts are taking part in a two-day meeting at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Secretariat to prepare the third issue of Regional Poverty Profile (RPP), which will be presented at the next SAARC Summit (to be held in 2006). They are planning to prepare the third issue of RPP by studying links between “productive employment and poverty reduction.” The governments of SAARC countries had formed three-member teams to prepare documents for inclusion in the RPP. The team leaders of the respective countries are taking part in the meeting, which began here today. “The second issue of the RPP 2004 will be presented in the upcoming Summit in Bangladesh,” said an official at the SAARC Secretariat. According to the SAARC Secretary-General, Chenkyab Dorji, the RPP of 2003 focused on profiling South Asia’s poor, developing a better understanding of socio-economic variables, and the development context of poverty for the past few decades. The RPP 2004 focused on the study of income, poverty, and inequalities, poverty and macro-economics of growth, employment, and poverty reduction.