The People's SAARC regional meeting on
Changing Political Landscape of South Asia
and role of People’s SAARC was organised
on 13-14 September, 2017 by NGO Federation
of Nepal (NFN) and South Asia Alliance for
Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) in Kathmandu.
Besides the changing political landscape and
the role of People's SAARC in South Asia the
meeting also highlighted that in the region
people are being more and more politically
alienated, denied fundamental rights as well
as access to instruments necessary for
realising their rights, therefore, there is
a need for civil society and peoples’
movements in the region is to come up with
and assert an alternative vision of regional
integration or new regionalism based on
peoples’ needs and aspirations. The SAARC
needs to be strengthened in order to make an
effective effort for regional cooperation,
regional integrity and peace and SAARC
should not be in a limbo irrespective of the
bilateral issues between member countries.
The
keynote speaker for the meet was Bekh
Bahadur Thapa, former minister, former
ambassador of Nepal and a member of the
drafting committee of SAARC Charter. The
participants consisted of Gopal Lamsal,
President of NGO Federation Nepal; Rakhi
Sehgal, People's SAARC India
Secretariat; Wali Haider, Joint Director
of Roots for Equity in Pakistan;
Rashid-E-Mahbub, PSAARC Bangladesh;
Nalini Ratnarajah, SAAPE core committee
member Sri Lanka; Meera Sehgal, South
Asian Specialist, India; Wazedul Islam
Khan, Member, People’s SAARC,
Bangladesh; Munaza Hasmi, Executive
Director of Encourage the Human
Development in Pakistan; Jyotsna Mohan,
Regional Coordinator of Asia Development
Alliance, India; Vishyut Agrawal, South
Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy
(SADED), India; Padma Khatiwada, SAAPE
core committee member, Nepal; Akram
Bhatti, Advocate Programme Director of
Encourage the Human Development (EHD) in
Pakistan and Abhiram Roy, Program
Director WOREC Nepal.
The participants from various South
Asian countries, civil society leaders,
activists urged the SAARC nations to
immediately start the process of
organizing the 19th SAARC Summit in
Pakistan. The various sessions of the
meeting was moderated by Netra Timsina,
Regional Secretariat of People’s SAARC,
Kedar Khadka, President of GoGo
Foundation, Nastasia Paul Gera,
Programme Coordinator SANGAT, India,
Khalid Mahmood, Executive Director of
the Labour Education Foundation (LEF),
Pakistan, Sharmila Karki, Regional
Steering Committee Member of People’s
SAARC, Shanta Lall Mulmi, Executive
Director of Resource Centre for Primary
Health Care, Nepal and Deekshya
Illangasinghe, Executive Director of
South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) Sri
lanka. Panel discussions on issues such
as geopolitics, democracy, human rights,
rights to mobility, rising politics of
fundamentalism, etc were discussed. The
need to strengthen People’s SAARC as a
common platform of the people of South
Asia (grassroots resistance), challenges
and opportunities, strategic direction
of People’s SAARC and identification of
action points at both country and
regional level were discussed as well.
The two days meeting concluded with 9
points declaration.
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