Challenges for the Saarc leaders

Considering that Bangladesh was the originator of the Saarc concept that led to the first ever summit of the seven Saarc countries being held in Dhaka in 1985 to establish the organisation, it would be entirely appropriate now for Bangladesh, in 2005, to take the lead in nudging the Saarc countries to think out of the box and prepare an appropriate proposal for consideration by the global dialogue envisioned at Gleneagles for later this year, that would also tie in with the Gleneagles G-8's other major pre-occupations -- ending poverty now and combating terrorism.

Our policymakers would, first and foremost, have to open the windows of their closed minds, look beyond the pale of their own noses and take a more holistic view of approaching solutions to the region's myriad problems of poverty, development, disaster management, and environmental, ecological economic and, indeed, overall regional security.

The floods last year that ravaged the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal sub-region within Saarc simultaneously were the worst in several decades. The losses were colossal, particularly in the lower plains areas. With an overactive monsoon season also expected this year, the region as a whole will have to brace itself for further disasters. The only way that these floods can be managed (they cannot be entirely prevented) is if the countries involved were to undertake, whether in the eastern or western sectors of the Saarc region, simultaneously and in a coordinated manner, activities for training and constructing protective embankments along the major river systems that flow across the sub-regions, holistically from the headwaters to the mouth of these rivers. (Indeed, this is the important lesson to be gleaned from the Chinese experience in training the Yellow River in China -- historically also known as the river of sorrows, before it was trained and tamed).

This would entail massive employment of human capital along the entire passage of the river, from the headwaters to the mouths, resulting in vast and widespread employment creation (and consequently local wealth generation). Along with training these rivers could be undertaken expansion of existing networks of irrigation channels, and construction of water conservation reservoirs in the form of small barrages for management of waters and generation of hydro-electricity using new and the best available technology for harnessing the river flows.

Construction of mega dams is no more an attractive proposition, not only because of the potential social consequences but also because of the risks involved in activating the fault-lines along existing tectonic plates of the sub-region. However, construction of small barrages cascading along the course of the rivers would effectively disperse such risks while accruing for the peoples along the route obvious benefits. Studies should be undertaken quantifying how many households in how many villages in which areas would be beneficiaries of the activities and power so generated, how much land could be saved or made more productive, what local businesses and services could be generated, and how much more local wealth would be added in the process.

All these activities would have direct or indirect beneficial economic effects not only for the peoples of the sub-region within the Saarc region where they are undertaken, but for the larger South Asian region and globally as well. The creation of employment would be bound to generate multiplier effects, with positive implications for promoting development and enhancing overall security. Training of the rivers and harnessing their current-flows to generate clean and renewable energy ad infinitum, would transform the lives of the peoples of the region. They would put a stop to continuing deforestation (for fuel as well as for illegal logging) and enable reforestation of already denuded areas and even expanding new areas of forestation, and also ensure that large chunks of the river banks are not washed away from uncontrolled floods. This in turn would save properties of people from washing away/destruction by rivers on the rampage during flood season, while progressive siltation of river-beds would be greatly reduced.

Environmentally speaking, one may foresee a two-fold reward: on the one hand, providing clean energy from an infinitely renewable source, for which there will be an ever growing demand by the growing populations of these already heavily populated areas, would dramatically reduce carbon emission from human activities until now overwhelmingly dependent on using carbon-based fuels, thus decreasing the pressures on the environment; on the other hand, the accompanying renewal and regeneration of forestry would result in enhancing the photosynthesising capacity of these commons for carbon sequestration, taking out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and replacing it with fresh, revitalising oxygen.

As bonus, with the region switching over increasingly to clean and renewable energy sources, the existing hydro-carbon resources of the region and such new sources as may be discovered in the future, would become available as surplus for export abroad, thereby generating additional revenues for the development of the region.

The author is a career diplomat who retired as Bangladesh's Ambassador to the United States in 2002. He is currently Senior Advisor in the IRIS Center of the University of Maryland, which has been proactively involved in development and reforms projects in Bangladesh since 1998.