- BIMSTEC envisions sustainable regional development; meetings in SL successful
- Several reasons why external partners should work with BIMSTEC in the region
- Looking at partnerships with UNESCAP, UNODC, UNOPS, World Bank, and IORA
- Progress made in Connectivity; Security; and Science, Technology, and Innovation
The countries around the Bay of Bengal face similar challenges and regional cooperation can play a very important role in dealing with those challenges, said Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Secretary General Indra Mani Pandey, in an interview with The Sunday Morning, during his introductory visit to Sri Lanka in mid-April.
“All the BIMSTEC member States are committed to realise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and, if they work together, it will be easier for all the seven member States to realise their SDGs,” he added.
BIMSTEC’s seven pillars of regional cooperation were delineated at the last summit in March 2022 and Sri Lanka leads the Science, Technology, and Innovation sector, which includes health and human resource development.
“Sri Lanka is a founding member of BIMSTEC and has always been a strong supporter of regional cooperation through BIMSTEC. Apart from the sector that it leads, it has also been very supportive of progress in other sectors as well,” the Secretary General said.
“The seven sectors provide benefits to all the countries and all the member States have a role to play in forging cooperation. Sri Lanka has been active as a member in taking forward cooperation in all the sectors and is a highly-valued partner in regional cooperation. We are very hopeful that it will continue to play its vital role,” he added.
Outlining BIMSTEC’s vision for future of the region, the Secretary General said: “It’s a collective vision of all the countries in the region that we should be able to realise progress in sustainable development of the region, make our region prosperous, and make sure that we are able to provide a better life to our people.”
Following are excerpts of the interview:
This is your first official visit to Sri Lanka since assuming office as Secretary General of BIMSTEC in January. What is the purpose of your visit?
There is a tradition of the Secretary General visiting all the BIMSTEC member States after taking over. This is my introductory visit to Sri Lanka. The purpose is to meet with Sri Lankan leaders and seek their guidance and support for regional cooperation within BIMSTEC.
During my visit, I have met President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Sabry, Health Minister Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, Foreign Secretary Aruni Wijewardane, Secretary to the Prime Minister Anura Dissanayake, Health Secretary Dr. Palitha Mahipala, and Education Secretary Thilaka Jayasundara. The meetings have gone very well and I have found complete support for BIMSTEC and desire to strengthen BIMSTEC and take forward cooperation.
What are your priorities during your three-year term as Secretary General?
The role of the Secretary General and the Secretariat, which the Secretary General heads, is to translate the decisions of the leaders into concrete initiatives for cooperation. The Secretariat’s role is to facilitate and organise meetings, prepare documents for meetings, and communicate messages from member States to other member States in order to facilitate consultation among them.
My task is to make sure that the Secretariat functions effectively and efficiently as per the mandate given by the member States. BIMSTEC is poised to play an important role in future regional cooperation in South Asia and Southeast Asia and the Secretariat is prepared to facilitate that cooperation.
How important is BIMSTEC as a regional organisation and what are the key regional challenges it aims to address?
BIMSTEC is an important regional cooperation organisation. It was set up in 1997, initially by four countries of this region – Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, and Thailand. The purpose was to have a mechanism through which the countries could pursue technical and economic cooperation. Myanmar joined in the same year and about six years later Nepal and Bhutan also joined BIMSTEC.
If you look at the Bay of Bengal, the countries around it face similar challenges and regional cooperation can play a very important role in dealing with those challenges. All the BIMSTEC member States are committed to realise the SDGs and, if they work together, it will be easier for all the seven member States to realise their SDGs.
Right now what purpose does BIMSTEC serve and what are the benefits for external partners in working with BIMSTEC?
At the last summit in Colombo, the seven pillars of regional cooperation were delineated. These pillars are Trade, Investment, and Development, including blue economy (Bangladesh); Environment and Climate Change, including mountain economy (Bhutan); Agriculture and Food Security, including animal husbandry and related areas (Myanmar); Science, Technology, and Innovation, which includes health and human resource development (Sri Lanka); Connectivity (Thailand); Security, including the sub-sectors of energy and disaster management (India); and People-to-People Contact, including poverty alleviation (Nepal).
These are the areas of cooperation which have already been identified and there are mechanisms like expert groups, senior officials’ meetings, and even ministerial meetings to pursue cooperation in these areas.
There are a number of reasons why external partners should work with BIMSTEC. Firstly, BIMSTEC member States have already agreed on areas of cooperation so external partners don’t need to worry about starting from scratch. Secondly, most external partners are likely to already be working with the member States bilaterally, and, if they work with BIMSTEC, they will have a collective platform to pursue regional cooperation goals.
For example, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is one of our partners, which engages in cooperation with all the seven BIMSTEC member States. Through BIMSTEC it can work on those issues which require all the member States to work together. For example, creating a transport network, which is an area where member States need to work together. The ADB has been a good partner on Connectivity and has been supporting us with conducting studies and preparing reports in this regard.
By working with BIMSTEC, external organisations can pursue cooperation in this important region collectively besides their bilateral cooperation with individual member States.
Apart from the ADB, who are the other partners working with BIMSTEC?
We are looking forward to signing Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with three other organisations: the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).
We are also looking at the World Bank as a partner, as well as a sister regional organisation, the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), of which Sri Lanka is presently the Chair. Some members of BIMSTEC are also members of IORA and we are looking at forging cooperation with IORA.
How do countries and people benefit from regional cooperation under BIMSTEC? Could you cite examples of successful projects?
We have worked together in establishing the BIMSTEC Centre for Weather and Climate (BCWC) in India, which is working with the meteorological departments of all the member States in assisting them with weather forecasts and forecasts on natural disasters, such as floods, cyclones, and hurricanes. Given how badly most of the countries in the region are affected by natural disasters, this is one example of how member States can benefit by working together.
If you look at the areas which have been identified by member States under the seven pillars, cooperation in all those areas will be of direct benefit to people of the region. For example, tourism is one of the areas for regional cooperation, which has huge potential. While we promote domestic tourism or global tourism, we should also focus on promoting tourism from within the region.
A regional tourism information centre has been set up and there is a network of tour operators meeting and working together. Recently there was a meeting of the Working Group on Tourism and they have prepared an Action Plan on cooperation in tourism.
Which of the seven pillars have shown the most progress and where does Sri Lanka stand in terms of forging regional cooperation in these sectors?
We have made a lot of progress in the Connectivity and Security sectors and we have made progress in the sector led by Sri Lanka – Science, Technology, and Innovation.
We are working on a proposal to set up a technology transfer facility in Colombo and the Memorandum of Association has been approved by all but one member State. Once the facility becomes functional, it can prove to be of immense benefit to the member States.
Sri Lanka is a founding member of BIMSTEC and has always been a strong supporter of regional cooperation through BIMSTEC. Apart from the sector that it leads, it has also been very supportive of progress in other sectors as well.
The seven sectors provide benefits to all the countries and all the member States have a role to play in forging cooperation. Sri Lanka has been active as a member in taking forward cooperation in all the sectors and is a highly-valued partner in regional cooperation. We are very hopeful that it will continue to play its vital role.
Under Sri Lanka’s pillar of Science, Technology, and Innovation, there is also a sub-sector of health. What progress has BIMSTEC made in forging cooperation in the health sub-sector?
Health is an important sub-sector under the Science, Technology, and Innovation sector. An expert group has been set up and the first meeting of the group was held in July 2023, chaired by the Director General of Health Services of Sri Lanka. That group has produced an Action Plan for forging cooperation in the health sector and other member States are in the process of looking at the Action Plan and taking initiatives to implement it.
Sri Lanka has also offered to host the very first meeting of BIMSTEC health ministers in order to identify areas of cooperation in the health sector, given the fact that the sector has emerged as a very important one in view of the experience of the countries of the region during the Covid pandemic.
Countries of the region need to be better prepared to deal with pandemics and Sri Lanka has taken the initiative to convene a meeting of BIMSTEC member States to share their experiences of how they dealt with the Covid pandemic and discuss how they can be better prepared.
The World Bank has offered to work together with Sri Lanka and other BIMSTEC member States in order to make sure that the countries of the region are better prepared to deal with pandemics in future.
Another area where Sri Lanka has worked well is human resource development, which is another sub-sector under Science, Technology, and Innovation. Here too Sri Lanka has prepared an Action Plan, which is under consideration of the member States.
In preparing this Action Plan that is focused on all the three aspects of human resource development – education, skill development, and capacity building – Sri Lanka has benefited from some of the initiatives which it has taken in Sri Lanka for human resource development, which can be beneficial for other member States as well.
What is BIMSTEC’s vision for the future of the region?
I think it’s a collective vision of all the countries in the region that we should be able to realise progress in sustainable development of the region, make our region prosperous, and make sure that we are able to provide a better life to our people.
What do you hope the sixth BIMSTEC Summit will achieve and what are the key goals?
The sixth summit is proposed to be hosted later this year by the present Chair of BIMSTEC, Thailand. The last summit was hosted by Sri Lanka in March 2022.
We hope that the summit will also adopt the agreement on maritime transport cooperation and ‘Vision 2030’ in order to pave the way for progress in BIMSTEC. An Eminent Persons Group (EPG) has been set up and it has already held two meetings. It is hoped that the group will be able to finalise its report before the next summit.
The purpose of the EPG is to look at BIMSTEC as a regional organisation in its entirety, its strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities that are present and suggest changes in the structure of the Secretariat, the structure of the core mechanisms of cooperation, and the structure of the sectoral mechanisms for cooperation in various sectors and also look at the areas of cooperation identified by the member States and the SDGs in order to identify if there are any gaps. The group is committed to preparing its report and submitting it to the leaders at the next summit.
With that report and the new vision being unveiled, where do you see BIMSTEC going in the next few years and how is it going to change?
It is going to emerge as a very important instrument for regional cooperation with renewed focus and commitment to work towards the welfare of the people of the Bay of Bengal region, enabling member States to deal with the challenges they are facing, whether related to security or realisation of SDGs.
PHOTO KRISHAN KARIYAWASAM