SAARC standing committee meeting concluded

Press Release 
KalimNews: The 41st Session of the SAARC Standing Committee, which began yesterday, has concluded successfully today. 

1. The Session was attended by the Foreign Secretaries of SAARC Member States, leading their respective delegations. 

2. Mr Shankere Das Bairagi, Acting Foreign Secretary and the Leader of the Nepalese Delegation, was elected Chairman of the Standing Committee. 3. The two-day meeting of the Committee discussed and deliberated upon a large number of issues of regional cooperation and came up with various decisions and recommendations.

4. As recommended by the earlier Sessions of the Programming Committee, the Committee agreed on the closure of three SAARC Regional Centres and merger of four Regional Centres for setting up a new Centre called SAARC Environment and Disaster Management Centre (SEDMC).

Centres agreed to be closed:

SAARC Documentation Centre (SDC) in New Delhi,

SAARC Human Resource Development Centre (SHRDC) in Islamabad, and

SAARC Information Centre (SIC) in Kathmandu.

Centres agreed to be merged into a new Centre called SEDMC:

SAARC Coastal Zone Management Centre (SCZMC) in the Maldives,

 SAARC Meteorological Research Centre (SMRC) in Bangladesh,

 SAARC Forestry Centre (SFC) in Bhutan, and

SAARC Disaster Management Centre (SDMC in India.

5.       The Committee also adopted Phase-out Plans for all the seven SAARC Regional Centres, as recommended by the 49^th Session of the Programming Committee.    

6.       In the Session of the Committee, the Member States presented their Country Reports, highlighting the status of SAARC Activities in their respective countries, and stressed the timely and effective implementation of the programmes and activities with a view to making the SAARC process more productive and result-oriented.

7.       The Committee adopted various Reports of the SAARC Specialized Bodies, Technical Committees, Inter-governmental Groups, Expert Groups and Working Groups, which have focused on enhancing cooperation on trade, economy, finance, investment, energy, connectivity, health, education, agriculture, etc.

8.       The Standing Committee decided to improve connectivity, increase agricultural productivity and food and nutritional security, maximize the positive, reliable and safe use of technology and address the adverse effects of climate change.

9.       The Committee stressed the need for strengthening SAARC Development Fund by operationalising its Economic and Infrastructure Windows.

10.    The Committee considered the matter relating to the upgradation of the Laboratory of the SAARC Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS Centre, located in Bhaktapur, to a Suprenational Laboratory. The Government of Nepal has already constructed a new building , and is considering finalizing voluntary contribution for the Lab's upgradation. During the meeting, Bangladesh and India offered financial contribution to the upgradation of the Laboratory to Supranational Laboratory.

11.    The Committee considered the matters relating to SAARC Apex and Recognized Bodies and Cooperation with Inter-Governmental Organizations. It  recommended granting of SAARC Recognized Body status to “South Asian Women Development Forum (SAWDF)"

12.    The Committee also deliberated on matters relating to setting up of a pre-determined time-frame for SAARC Summits, delegating some of the mandates of the Standing Committee to the Programming Committee, and agreed to elevate the status of Programming Committee to a Charter body.

13.    The Committee agreed to make SAARC’s engagement of Observers project-based and demand-driven in the areas of priorities for the Member States.

14.    The matter of the relocation of the SAARC Secretariat also came under deliberation on which the delegation of Nepal briefed the Committee about the preparation for the same.

15.    The Committee discussed a number of other issues under the SAARC areas of cooperation.