South Asian academicians and scholars yesterday formed a think tank named “South Asian Development Network” to discuss issues concerning economic and social development in the region.

“It is high time to rethink development in South Asia. We will disseminate our respective local knowledge among academicians and development practitioners in the region,” Farid Uddin Ahamed, the dean of the social science faculty of the University of Chittagong, told The Daily Star.

He was speaking after the end of a two-day conference on rethinking development in the subcontinent at the university organised by its Social Science Research Institute in association with Manusher Jonno Foundation, a non-government and non-profit organisation.

While development has become a buzzword for everything in the region, the development model has become bureaucracy-centric, said Ahamed, also the conference's convener.

“Definitely we are developing. But we have to think how we can make it meaningful for our respective societies and countries,” he said.

He said the think tank would bring out publications and journals and hold workshops on economic and social development to boost collaboration among scholars and development practitioners in South Asia.

The think tank will hold its second conference in Delhi next year.

Ahamed has been made the president of the platform while Prof Anup Dhar, the director of the Centre for Development Practice of Ambedkar University, Delhi, the general secretary. Earlier in the day, experts and development practitioners took part in six sessions on a diverse range of issues, including governance and development, agriculture, NGOs and rural development, communications and development, politics, rights and development.

At the governance and development session, Prof Tofail Ahmed, a specialist on local government, said the international community was praising Bangladesh for empowering women at the local government bodies though the real situation was different.

“Reserved seats have failed to empower women. Their overall participation has not increased,” he said while chairing the session.

“If we take into account that women's participation has increased to some extent, it does not mean that they have been empowered as they hardly have any decision-making power,” Ahmed added.

He also said chairmen and members of union parishads were not well informed about their duties and functions, so they only followed instructions of their higher authorities.

Ahmed said the Article 59 of the Constitution gives local bodies the power to prepare and implement plans related to public services and economic development but they could not do so.

The government needs to bring reforms to empower local bodies and their representatives with adequate funds in order to make the local government system meaningful, he said.

Mohammad Nurul Islam, a professor of the public administration department of the CU, underscored the need for intensive research on governance and development so that the country moves forward.