Revitalizing SAARC: Challenges and Prospects

The modern panacea for many economic and political ills is regional integration. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was also established aiming at regional integration and economic connectivity. However, for many years, its performance proved to be disappointing because of a lot of political riddles. SAARC critics bring up causes for ineffectiveness of SAARC as an argument to look for options beyond SAARC and find alternate avenues for regional cooperation. As a matter of fact, renewed efforts rethinking regional priorities and enabling SAARC to fulfill its promises are need of the hour, not the other way around. The revitalization of SAARC, in this regard, could be a better option for South Asian integration. Additionally, with a pragmatic way forward, challenges can be turned into opportunities. Therefore, this paper tries to reestablish the relevance of SAARC in contemporary regional environment by highlighting objectives behind its origin, its previous achievements and capacity to bring all SAARC members on the same page for regional growth. Moreover, it tries to proffer the fact that SAARC is still alive and regional states can adopt a collective course of action to make it effective.