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South Asia shares a combination of issues that has accompanied development in the region. Despite being prosperous in natural and human resources the region has been home to the two thirds of the world’s poor people. There have been several efforts
from individuals, civil societies at the national and regional levels, without any significant result to address the barriers of Sustainable development. In the absence of people’s participation in regional initiatives such as SAARC, there have been inadequate considerations to pro poor people by the governments. This provides us with no alternative but to raise people’s voices and envision ‘people as a leader’ to make
poverty as a history.

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South Asia is home to the world’s poorest of the poor. Increasing communalization, religious fundamentalism and weaponisation have magnified numerous regional issues such as mass poverty, environmental degradation, natural catastrophes, social security, small arms trade, girl child and women trafficking and economic cooperation. The production of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan has further jeopardized the region’s security.

The South Asian region comprises a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and multi-cultural society. In order to retain their distinct identities the people of the region expect proportional access to policymaking and political options. However, some of the despotic regimes of South Asia have denied the people their basic rights and democracy
has become a farce. Similarly, social security has largely been ignored as it has received little priority from the governments of the countries within SAARC.

South Asia forms a single, uninterrupted mass of land area of nearly 4.5 million sq. km which is home to a quarter of the world’s population. The region faces many problems such as illiteracy, a low status of women, child malnutrition, low wages, poor health services, heavy external debt, unfinished agrarian reforms, high military spending and involuntary displacement.

Regional cooperation is becoming decisive in many respects. The key to successful regional cooperation is the opening of communication channels between the peoples of member countries, preventing and screening negative feedback to the people.

The establishment of SAARC has not been able to satisfy the expectations of one and a half billion people. There has been much disappointment because the regional cooperation to facilitate exchange and mobility among the people has yet to be a mainstream activity in the official agenda of SAARC.

The fourth South Asian people’s summit, as a parallel representative forum of civil societies of South Asian countries, was conceived as an opportunity to formulate the demands and aspirations of the people of this region. The main idea was to assemble by the sidelines of SAARC summit and propose some concrete suggestions, besides issuing a joint declaration comprising overall vision of the South Asia, within the agenda under discussion by the heads of the states and governments.

The third South Asian People’s Summit was held from 11 to 13 January 2003 in Islamabad and took place simultaneously with 12th SAARC summit. Focusing on peace, livelihood securities and regional cooperation as the main agenda, the summit assembled leading names from South Asian countries to discuss the situation and formulate recommendations for the heads of states and governments gathered at the event of SAARC Summit.

The key themes for the commission set up in the summit were

• Peace and Regional Cooperation
• Poverty Eradication
• Social Development
• Governance
• Trafficking in Women and Children