Leaders of South Asian nations wound up a two-day summit meeting in Colombo Sunday afternoon, pledging to render more efforts to ensure food security and combat terrorism in the region.
During the 15th SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Summit, which was held on Aug.2-3, heads of state or government of eight SAARC member countries tried to chart a clearer path for the bloc.
SAARC groups eight countries of South Asia, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Food security concern
Along with many issues discussed at the summit, food security was one of the heated topics as the region has a population of about 1.5 billion population, or one fifth of the world population.
"Given the seriousness of the subject of food security, we have felt that it deserves to be addressed through a special statement," Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said in his closing address of the summit.
In the Colombo Statement on Food Security, the SAARC leaders affirmed their resolve to ensure the region-wide food security by directing an extraordinary meeting of the agriculture ministers of the SAARC member states later this year in New Delhi, India, to evolve and implement a short to medium term regional strategy and collaborative projects.
"We direct that the SAARC Food Bank be urgently operationalized," the SAARC leaders said in the statement. The idea of forming the SAARC Food Bank is to store stocks for distribution in case of a particular scarcity within the South Asian region.
"We further direct that SAARC region should forge greater cooperation with the international community to ensure food availability and nutrition security in South Asia," said the statement.
