The Hindu : `Misplaced priorities' for investment in SAARC region

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 04, 2004

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`Misplaced priorities' for investment in SAARC region

By Gargi Parsai

New Delhi Jan. 3. As leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) begin their 12th summit in Islamabad tomorrow, a senior official of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Wasim Zaman, has expressed concern at the ``misplaced priorities'' for investments in the region, which overlook the need for addressing human development indicators. ``Too much energy and resources are wasted on amplifying divisions within and between countries. Religious fundamentalism and lack of toleration, in more than one country, has complicated things further,'' he said at a meeting here today with select mediapersons.

Born in erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, Dr. Zaman is the Regional Director of the Technical Office of the UNFPA in Kathmandu in Nepal. He was earlier the India and Bhutan Representative of the agency based in New Delhi.

Although a Social Charter is an agenda item for the SAARC summit, Dr. Zaman suggests that the SAARC leaders focus on human rights, equality of men and women and attach an urgency in dealing with human development indicators that are seriously lagging in the region. ``Globalisation should not be at the cost of human development. Globalisation without employment is thoughtless globalisation. Clearly, the priorities are somewhere else. The SAARC meeting is a good time to point out that the Millennium Development Goals would not be met unless the leaders of the region show a political will collectively and individually.''

According to Dr. Zaman, developments in technology in the region and industrialisation have failed to bridge the urban-rural divide or lessened poverty and social and gender equalities, or impacted population stabilisation in countries such as India. On the other hand, military spending in the region had increased by 60 per cent in 1991-2000.

He stated that with one-fifth of the world's population, the region has 44 per cent of the world's poor. Approximately, 522 million people living on less than a dollar a day. Forty per cent of global mortality in children under five years occurs in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh and 70 per cent of world's low birth weight infants are in South Asia, which has the world's worst record on child malnutrition. The region accounted for 30 per cent of maternal deaths that occur globally. Only one-third of the births are attended by skilled personnel.

He said that South Asia was known to be the most ``gender insensitive'' with a strong preference for son and violence against women throughout the lifecycle. An estimated 60 million ``missing women'' with sex-selective abortion were prevalent in many parts of the region. Except in Sri Lanka, the ratio of literate females to males is the lowest in the world.

``Appropriate actions are required by the political leadership to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 related to poverty, gender equality, education, reduction of child mortality, maternal health and HIV, Reproductive and Child Health services. These issues need to be pursued seriously while thinking of globalisation. It is important to table these items now,'' he said.

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