The articles in this book clearly acknowledge a strong and effective intellectual infrastructure prepared for SAARC. This framework spans across economic, strategic and security as well as social dimensions of regional cooperation in South Asia. The problem has largely been at the level of implementation. There are signs that political will is being slowly but steadily inducted into gearing the pace of streamlining SAARC as a viable instrument of regional peace, development and stability. SAFTA has been put on the move and there is a noticeable improvement in regional trade and overall atmosphere for mutually advantageous economic engagement. In the area of economic arrangement, efforts need to be made to initiate processes of financial integration and investment flows. Energy security appears to be both a promising and a challenging task. Politics has to be set aside in establishing energy linkages (be they in the form of oil and gas pipelines or electric power grid and transmission lines) and ensuring that region's abundant energy potential, particularly hydropower, is optimally harnessed and judicially accessed.

SAARC also deserves to be complimented for drafting and adopting an excellent Social Charter. Its implementation had been marred until recently by the lack of democratic processes in some of the member countries. There is a radical change in this respect as a new democratic wave has swept through the whole of South Asia during the past four to five years.