SAARC Secretariat
INSTITUTIONAL SOFT SPOTS

By Madhukar S.J.B.Rana
Institute For Development Studies
30 January, 2003

It is often said that a chain is as strong as its weakest link. How very true when one reflects on the soft spots in the SAARC Secretariat. One way to strengthen SAARC, through all the unfortunate battering that the process is currently undergoing, is to empower the Secretariat.

Many suggestions have been made on this; notably by the Coalition for Action on South Asian Cooperation (CASAC). Offered here are additional suggestions to upgrade the functioning of the Secretariat without which SAARC has the potential to wither away into silence, if not oblivion, as it gets embroiled in the emergent scenarios of violence, conflicts and wars.

Purely having a so-called 'coordinating' role the SAARC process itself lowers the profile of the SAARC executives who have to function under the shadows of the Summit, Council of Ministers, Technical Committees and, not least, the SAARC Directorates/Divisions in the foreign ministries. True, the Secretary-General is, of late, empowered to make broad recommendations at the Summit through the instrumentality of his Address. But the Secretariat is not empowered to make functional recommendations during any of the other meetings.

A very fundamental flaw lies in the fact that all staff 'think and act national', which is self-defeating for a regional organization. How has this occurred? Simply as a result of the executive staff being seconded by the respective foreign ministries. Furthermore, these deputations are made neither on the basis of the job requirements of SAARC, nor on internal competition for the posting. Nor, indeed, does the Secretary-General have any choice over the candidates. Directors are simply assigned to him.

What has all this amounted to so far after 15 years of SAARC? The politico-bureaucratic process adopted have led to 'results' that are merely to be seen in high-decimal declarations of hopes and aspirations at the highest level, and functional mediocrity in the exchange of knowledge and experience in lower echelons, as compared to proceedings in other multilateral fora by South Asian participants. In such a process, the Secretariat is merely a passive bystander as it lacks authority to initiate new ideas through independent research and lacks, too, requisite expertise to serve as a catalyst for dialogue and change.

Experts from outside the corridors of the national bureaucracies are not invited. We do not see this extreme form of closed-door mentality in other regional organizations. Why here? It is because the principle of consensus has been taken to its absolute limits where each country, even in the Technical Committees, is provided with the power of veto over any matter it deems fit.

The Secretariat is literally a closeted outfit that cannot, on its own judgment, cooperate with other regional bodies nor mobilize funds for agreed regional programmes on its very own initiative. Hence it has no incentive to be innovative or creative.

It is suggested here that the South Asian regional programmes of the UN agencies may be better planned, implemented and monitored if it is channeled through the SAARC Secretariat and its seven Technical Committees. And in the process, the Secretariat would be fortified with adequate know-how and expertise to 'think global and act regional'. In the same manner, the Regional Centres should coordinate their regional programmes with the UN agencies through the SAARC Secretariat.

The Secretariat should be consciously designed to develop at two levels simultaneously, namely (a) functionally and (b) politically. Deliberations of the Technical Committees should be deemed to be 'functional' and thus be open to decision-taking on the basis of majority.

All functional recommendations for regional cooperation emanating from the Technical Committees should be channelized for decision-taking by the appropriate Ministerial Council (say finance and macro-planning, information technology, trade and investment, environment and natural resources, water and energy, transport and communication, social and cultural and human resources etc.).'Action Committees', being involved in sub-regional cooperation projects, could also forward their decisions to the Ministerial Council for review or approval.

Recommendations from accredited civil society bodies like, for example, the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industries and the proposed SAARC Council on Prominent Women be channelized directly into the Ministerial Council on Trade and Investment and Ministerial Council on Human Social, Cultural and Human Resources respectively for functional deliberations and decisions.

All deliberations by the Council of Ministers be deemed to be 'political' and thus subject to decision by consensus. In the functional process, as proposed, the Council of Ministers is the organ for informal political consultations as other appropriate Ministerial Councils have been proposed to handle sectoral functions. Hence it is envisaged that the Council of Ministers set aside one full session to discuss political, security and issues concerned with violence, law and order in the region, including terrorism.

With such novel political and functional process in place it may, perhaps, be advisable to henceforth hold Summits every two years only so that matters referred to Heads of State/Government by the Foreign Ministers could be deliberated upon at the Summit; as well as deciding on new political and functional directions for SAARC to adopt through comprehensive deliberations by the Council of Ministers, which is then filtered into the Technical Committees through the Secretariat.

As globalization is founded on regionalism so the Secretariat should be the storehouse of knowledge on other regional organizations. It must develop stronger links with the European Union, ASEAN, Gulf Cooperation Council and ESCAP.

Cooperation in information technology and bio-medical sciences, the prime movers of globalization in the 20th century, is a must if South Asia is to catch up with the rest of humanity in the 21st century as developed, industrialized societies.

Other than its proximity to priority regional groupings, vital links have to be developed with individual Asian countries like Japan and South Korea as strategic sources of investments for infrastructure, manufacturing, tourism and financial services like banking and insurance for South Asia as a whole.

Reguired specialization on mountain ecology, water, energy and disaster management should mean that close links should be forged by the SAARC Secretariat with ICIMOD to take advantage of the vast body of knowledge on the Hindu Kush-Himalayan mountains and complementary research prgrammes be jointly designed. Equally, through ICIMOD's Mountain Forum, the Secretariat can reach out to the Central Asian Republics as strategic markets for South Asia's energy needs as well as for its exportable goods and services at very close proximity to its own northern borders. Avenues fro inter-regional co-operation here should be explored.

One could reasonably expect the Secretariat to act as the common forum to put across to the world the South Asian perspective and positions on globalism, WTO, IMF, World Bank etc. Perhaps its greatest contribution can lie in serving as the South Asian knowledge-window on WTO. This will serve to advance our collective negotiating capabilities with continuous comparative research and strategy formulation through regional exercises on the needs of the developing countries of South Asia, particularly its least developed and landlocked countries.

The Secretariat should develop extensive networks to share their database on South Asia and to network with other institutions globally that focuses on South Asia and thus act as a primary repository of information and documentation on very specialized areas of knowledge pertaining to South Asia (e.g. laws, treaties, rules, regulations, procedures which are found to be extremely difficult to obtain as also on selected grander themes and critical functions or sectors). Its strength can be fortified through undertaking of comparative analyses of policies, programmes and procedures over critical functions and issues lying in the global agenda.

The SAARC Secretariat has failed to live up to its potential. It truly disappoints. Its only achievement is that it exists and that it has, somehow, been able to survive testing bilateral upheavals. SAARC will languish and just wither away if it refuses to tackle the problems of regional peace and security. Fears of asymmetry will only be assuaged if sensitive issues can be discussed openly and with sincerity for the good of all the peoples of the region.