The very fact that the 13th Summit is being held in 2005, not in 1997, as it should have been in accordance with the Charter, appears to reflect the lack of commitment of member-states.

This is not something unexpected as SAARC had a painful and suspicious birth. When Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman conceived the regional organisation in the late 70s, India and Pakistan had suspicion on Bangladesh's intention to create such a regional forum.

The question raised in New Delhi and Islamabad was : whether Bangladesh was playing a "second fiddle" or acting on behalf of any country's hidden political agenda? It is believed that India thought that Bangladesh allowed itself to be a proxy for Pakistan to contain the influence of India in the region, while Pakistan imagined that Bangladesh played into the hands of India to corner Pakistan.

Such misgivings on the part of India and Pakistan continued for a couple of years. Meanwhile Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives lent total support to the idea and eventually pressure was built up on India and Pakistan by smaller neighbours to create such a regional forum for cooperation in various non-controversial fields.

Basic ingredients
All the seven countries share common geography, culture and history. Further they were ruled by the British and share common colonial experience. The British left English language, education system and similar administrative structure in the countries. As a result, cooperation among them is considered as natural.

Although the region constitutes 20 per cent of the world's population, 50 per cent of the world's poor live in the region. Overwhelming majority of people of the region face extreme poverty compared to those of South East Asian countries.

In the late 70s, almost all regions had set up their own organisations to address regional issues. In South East Asia, Association of South East Asian Nations was established in 1967. For Arab countries there is Arab League; for Africa, Organisation of African Unity (in 2002 it was re-designated as African Unity) was set up in 1963. For Latin and Central American countries, Organisation of American States (OAS) was constituted in 1948.

In the light of the situation, a regional organisation in South Asia was perceived as an obvious necessity. Many political analysts believe that but for continued rivalry and animosity between India and Pakistan, a regional forum would have been created long ago.

1985: SAARC was born
The concept of SAARC formally started with a meeting in April 1981 of Foreign Secretaries of all seven countries. Thereafter the Foreign Ministers met in 1983 and a draft Charter of the organisation came into existence in 1984.

SAARC was formally launched in Dhaka in December, 1985 by the Summit of leaders of seven countries. Two years later ( in January 1987), the Secretariat of the SAARC was set up in Kathmandu, Nepal with a Secretary General that rotates among the seven member countries.

The 1985 Summit adopted the Dhaka Declaration that was a lengthy document. Among others, the Declaration expressed the following:

" The Heads of State or Government acknowledged that the countries of South Asia……

were confident that with the effective regional cooperation, they could make optimum use of these capacities for the benefit of peoples, accelerate their national

and collective self-reliance."

In the above extract of the Declaration, it is noted that the word " effective" was used before the phrase "regional cooperation". The leaders in their wisdom realised that unless cooperation among the states would be "effective", it would not be possible to use resources of the seven countries for the benefit of their people.

Unlike other regional organisations, bilateral issues or disputes have been kept out of the Charter with the intention that SAARC should not be bogged down with bilateral contentious issues because India has a long-standing policy that bilateral issues should be dealt with on bilateral basis. Other members-states have continued some reservations on the Indian policy but had to forego for the sake of setting up the regional forum, otherwise India would not be locked in with SAARC.

Post-1985
One may say that the SAARC had a fragile start and effective cooperation eluded primarily because of the discord between India and Pakistan. Both countries have paid a heavy price for the unresolved Kashmir territorial dispute. Furthermore the rivalry and animosity between them heavily impacted on the performance of SAARC all the way.

There are other factors that impeded the cooperation within the framework of SAARC and the following deserves mention.

First, the region is asymmetrical. The size and resources of India are larger than those of other six countries combined together. Furthermore, India's geographical location is strategic in the sense that it sits in the middle of South Asia and as a result almost all countries are India's neighbours.

This places India as the dominant economic and political power in the region. This has put in particular Pakistan in a quandary and Pakistan's quest for holding balance of power with India remains its main plank of foreign policy as it does not accept easily India's dominance in the region..

Second, security perception of India and Pakistan is divergent. China is a rival to India in Asia-Pacific region, while to Pakistan, China is an ally. Besides, the US wants to put India as a counter-point to China's growing power in the region.

Third, India's long-standing strategic position appears to be based mainly on three pillars, namely, (a) no neighbouring country should acquire weapons threatening to the security of India, (b) no close relationships can be built by neighbours (except Pakistan) with big powers, endangering India's security and finally (c) no third party should get involved in inter-states disputes of South Asia.

The adherence to such policy appears to be advantageous to India because by all the established rules of political mathematics, India being a stronger power, weaker states have to finally succumb to its wishes.

Finally, trade, that acts as glue among regional countries, remained out of focus for more than ten years. As a result, economic cooperation among member states was kept to a minimum level.

Achievements
Despite the difficulties stated above, during almost the last two decades, SAARC was able to progress on a number of agreed areas of co-operation, such as agriculture and forestry, health, population-control, child welfare, environment and meteorology, rural development, communication, transport, tourism, science and technology, education, women and development, drug abuse and drug trafficking.

The creation of a Regional Food Security has been a wise move given that agricultural production is exposed to natural calamities in the region. SAARC's professional groups have given a momentum to promotion of cooperation among professional persons of the region. Discount fares for SAARC nationals, SAARC visa exemption programme, SAARC youth awards and SAARC festivals are some of the achievements.

SAARC has become more outward looking and cooperative endeavours have been established with ASEAN and with various agencies of the UN. It has been reported on 9th December that the UN General Assembly had accorded SAARC the status of an observer at the UN. This will certainly facilitate not only cooperation between SAARC and the UN but also will focus the activities of the regional organisation to the member-states of the UN.

Dhaka Summit : January 9-11, 2005
The Summit is being held at a time when political environment is conducive to a meaningful result. The thaw in bilateral relations between India and Pakistan has made it possible to have a composite dialogue between the two countries at a high political level. The congenial environment seems to be propitious for embarking on a bold vision for the third decade of the organisation..

It appears that to meet the challenges of economic globalisation, the seven countries are keen to establish intensive economic cooperation among them and the Dhaka Summit may be the catalyst for setting up of the SAARC economic union in the years ahead.

India, at the Islamabad Summit last January, proposed a target of setting up the economic union by 2015, while on a different note Pakistan suggested incorporation of political agenda at the Summit together with the economic union proposal. Despite the divergent agenda proposed by India and Pakistan, the SAARC leaders endorsed the idea of a possible South Asian Economic Union (SAEU).

One of the first steps for SAEU appears to be the implementation of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) from January 2006, when trade barriers between member-countries will start to be lifted.

However, some economists are of the view that the devil of Free Trade Agreement

( FTA) is in the details. For example, how extensive has been the coverage of FTA? How large has been the negative list of commodities that will be exempt from FTA? Are tariff and non-tariff barriers simultaneously eliminated or reduced?

Furthermore, in their view, the asymmetry in economic size and population of India has implications for the way in which the distribution of possible economic gains out of economic union needs to be evaluated. Each country makes an estimate of its possible gain, however inaccurate it may be. The perception of estimated gain may constitute an important ingredient in the decision of member-countries to set up an economic union in the region.

Another matter that requires attention is that no effective mechanism to follow-up the existing cooperative agreements on various fields exists at present. Bangladesh Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan reportedly proposed that member-countries should bring about a "perceptible change" in implementing various agreements. He also proposed to have permanent staff at the Kathmandu Secretariat for sustained policy planning and implementation. His proposals are pragmatic, action-oriented and need to be considered seriously.

Conclusion
The usefulness of SAARC cannot be over emphasised. The founding principle of SAARC is promotion of self-help and regional cooperation and solidarity. The SAARC Summits are often used, on the sidelines, for bilateral discussion among member-countries. The one-day retreat for the leaders ( January 10th, 2005) provides them opportunity to discuss candidly all issues that need to be resolved.

The importance of the Summit lies in the consolidation of personal relationship among the highest level of political leaders. No one can deny the fact that SAARC is a major piece of political architecture and it has come to stay. We hope the Dhaka Summit will provide vigour and energy to SAARC to move forward constructively to achieve peace, progress and prosperity for the people of the region of more than 1.5 billion.

Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.