They also urged civil societies of other Saarc countries to make similar demands so that national governments take arrangements to accommodate civil society groups in the Saarc summit like European Union that usually accommodates and hears them.

The press conference was organised by Supra (Campaign for Good Governance) at Dhaka Reporters' Unity Auditorium ahead of 14th Saarc summit to be held in India next month.

The speakers made suggestions on a number of regional issues including Saarc development goal (SDG), mobility of labour and services, agriculture and environmental change, South Asian free trade area, inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) and military armament of some Saarc countries.

Supra Secretary Rezaul Karim Chowdhury said it is unlikely that South Asian countries would be able to attain millennium development goal (MDG) if the progress continues at the present rate.

To make the regional association more effective in alleviating poverty, he recommended formation of Saarc poverty reduction fund, establishing Saarc economic union, free access of unskilled and semi-skilled workers within Saarc countries and keeping education, health, food and accommodation out of the purview of privatisation policy.

For attaining sustainable development and food security in the region, members of the research group suggested taking special measures for agricultural and environmental issues.

Regarding FDI inflow in these countries, they said the governments should have full control over the FDI inflow in Saarc region and the foreign investors should offload their shares in the domestic markets so that common people can get maximum benefit from such investments.

They also said environmentally disastrous policies of multinational companies should not be legitimised in the name of corporate social responsibility (CSR), rather the concept should be used in evaluating the environmental hazards caused by the companies and they should compensate for those.

The group also suggested greater co-operation among the Saarc countries in combating non-state terrorism, discouraging religion based politics, spreading secular education, increasing budget for human development and reducing spending on military armament.

Group researchers Md Zakaria, Syed Aminul Huq, Barkat Ullah Maruf, Md Shamsuddoha and Pradip Roy were present at the press conference.