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Download PDF Finance ministers from eight South Asian countries will meet in New Delhi on September 14 for operationalising the $300 million Saarc Development Fund (SDF).
The fund was created as the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) had pledged to support projects to alleviate poverty and improve status of the peoples of the region.
Finance Adviser Dr Mirza AB Azizul Islam will lead the Bangladesh delegation at the meeting being hosted by India as the current chair of Saarc.
The Delhi meeting, to be preceded by a meeting of the Saarc finance secretaries of the member states on September 13, will mainly focus on finalising the recommendations on the charter and by-laws of the fund, financial issues related to the roadmap of the Saarc Economic Union and development of the regional capital market, official sources said.
Saarc has been considering proposals like Poverty Alleviation Fund, Infrastructure Fund, South Asian Development Bank, Media Development Fund, and Voluntary Fund for the Differently Able Persons, in addition to the South Asian Development Fund (SADF).
In order to avoid proliferation of funds, the First Meeting of Financial Experts was convened in September 2005 to look at the entire gamut of issues relating to funding of Saarc projects and programmes.
The 13th Saarc Summit in Dhaka on November 12-13 in 2005 decided to reconstitute the SADF into SDF to serve as the umbrella financial institution for all Saarc projects and programmes.
The SDF reconstituted with a permanent secretariat, with three windows — social, economic, and infrastructure. The social window, with an initial amount of $300 million, is expected to fund poverty alleviation programmes and projects among others.
Through the infrastructure window, funds will be mobilised from within and beyond the region to finance infrastructure projects, while the economic window will fund other non-infrastructure commercial projects.
Ahead of the finance ministers’ Delhi meeting, experts comprising officials of finance and foreign ministries as well as the government agencies concerned are scheduled to meet in Kathmandu on August 21-22 to finalise their recommendations on the SDF’s charter and by-laws.
Another separate experts’ group is also due to meet in Kathmandu on August 24-25 for the recommendations on greater economic integration that will help form the Saarc Economic Union, foreign ministry officials said.
Saarc Secretariat has already issued a circular inviting all member countries for the experts’ group meeting in order to kick-start the process of the fund, which has already been delayed due to dispute between ‘powerful member’ countries.
Talking to The Daily Star, a finance ministry official said the August 24-25 meeting would come up with their recommendations on investment promotion, service sector development and formation of a regional customs union.
The least developed members have favoured the process of developing a capital market, arguing that the linkage of capital markets mobilises funds for the domestic markets.
Saarc was founded in 1985 comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan became the 8th member of Saarc at its 13th summit in Dhaka while China, Japan, South Korea, the United States and the European Union became observers of the organisation at the Dhaka summit.
August 18th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Let us make an effort to persuade UAE to become SAARC Members who may help us to save our Dying industries.We need to be persuasive & very tactful
in the matter of finance like Indo -China.
Tell you the truth , even we could have persuaded UK & USA to invest in Bangladesh but deterent factors are language & political instability extortion & dishonesty.
Talking about present day of India, Our Muslim brothers are unmindful to a very important issue: the more people writing against Islam: Nasrin & Rashdi & the like ,More western people taking interest to learn about Islam and as a result many are converting to Islam.
Dogs bite is below knees, so let us be tolerent.
Thank you.