Kabul, Afghanistan.
The webinar made an assessment of the opportunities and challenges on the current agenda of regional cooperation to rejuvenate South Asia. The discussions by the academicians and policymakers centered around a renewed narrative of multilateralism and ideas on the different institutional mechanisms required.
Addressing the program, Executive Director, Nazir Kabiri shared Afghanistan’s vision for regional cooperation and the need for connectivity between Central and South Asia. He furthered explained the need to brining some realism into the “regional cooperation” discourse in South Asia. Referring to the political rivalries, he said that the extraordinary cost of non-cooperation in South Asia is having a negative implication on the wider region.
As a forward-looking agenda, the executive director suggested that peace in the region will unlock the full potential of regional cooperation that could promote cross-border economic cooperation among the South Asian countries where trade and investment projects are capable of contributing to economic growth, job creation, income generation and confidence-building in the wider Central, South and Southwest Asia.
Note:
This Policy Dialogue was attended by the heads of national policy think-tanks in South Asian countries, representatives of governments, academia, civil society organizations, media, and other key stakeholders from South Asian countries.