Nepal will be emphasising the need to inject additional investment into agriculture to enable the SAARC region to tackle impending food deficit at the upcoming meeting of SAARC agriculture ministers.

In the backdrop of sluggish progress in cooperation among South Asian nations, the World Bank (WB) is now persuading for specific projects to strengthen regional collaboration in energy, transport, food security and other sectors.

The WB has already started a technical study on different projects and their feasibility to ascertain how those can benefit the region through these sectors.

Meteorological scientists began a two-day seminar here on Wednesday emphasising the need for more research-based climate modelling through the SAARC Meteorological Research Centre (SMRC) to cope with climate change.

SAARC member states are incurring losses of millions of dollars every year due to frequent meteorological catastrophes such as tropical cyclones, storm surges, severe thunderstorms and nor'westers, they said.

They observed that regional cooperation among the SAARC member states must be strengthened utilising respective resources to face the climate change.

A three-day SAARC conference on climate change was held in Dhaka from 1 to 3 July, where the ministers and experts of South Asian countries resonated the judicious demands of developing nations to adapt vis-a-vis the impacts of the climate change. In the context of global warming, faster sea level rise, frequent devastating cyclones, floods and droughts, the SAARC countries have designed an action plan to combat the environmental challenges.

Speakers at a seminar yesterday underscored the need to build capacity to adopt a sustainable climate change adaptation strategy.

Bangladesh is most vulnerable to climate change and an adaptation strategy must be adopted to offset the impacts of global climate change, they said.

"We have succeeded in coping with two devastating floods and the cyclone Sidr last year by dint of our strong determination. Besides, the country has managed to ensure food security in the wake of global food crisis," Home Adviser Maj Gen (retd) MA Matin said as the chief guest.

SAARC leaders yesterday issued a special

The 15th SAARC Summit has placed food security high on its agenda with the promise of more state intervention including a SAARC Food Bank to help any Member State in case of exigencies.

Foreign Secretary Dr. Palitha Kohona addressing media at the conclusion of Standing Committee meetings said that all Member States had reached a consensus on the concept of a SAARC Food Bank.

Dr. Kohona added that a preliminary draft as a proposal would be forwarded to the Foreign Minister's meeting for further perusal.

The leaders of the South Asian countries are set to issue a separate statement on food security, apart from the SAARC declaration, focussing on activating the regional food bank with an initial outlay of 2.5 lakh tonnes and enhancing cooperation in agriculture for boosting production.

The South Asian nations are set to activate the SAARC food bank immediately after the summit meeting to help the member-countries tackle exigent situations after the foreign secretaries reached a consensus on the first day of their two-day meeting here on Tuesday.
They agreed to help each other for increasing agricultural production by providing each other technological support as well as making the distribution mechanisms of food-grains more effective.

B. Muralidhar Reddy

COLOMBO: The 15th SAARC Summit, scheduled for August 2 and 3, would come out with a declaration on "food security' and deliberate on the "collective action on modalities of dealing with menace of terrorism.'

The Standing Committee of the summit, comprising Foreign Secretaries of the eight Member-States, on the opening day of its two-day meeting on Tuesday agreed on the need for separate declaration on food security in the context of rising food costs and shortages experienced by the region.