SC for strengthening SANEI

The members of the SANEI Steering Committee (SC) held a meeting on 26 December 2009 in Dhaka, Bangladesh and decided to strengthen the regional network to make it more effective in addressing the development issues in South Asia. It may be mentioned that this was the first meeting of the Steering Committee after the SANEI Secretariat was moved from the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) to the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) in October 2009. The meeting reviewed the current activities of SANEI and took some important decisions to further strengthen the network.

• Expanding existing network: The SC members agreed to expand the Network to remaining South Asian countries e.g. Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Maldives in order to make a greater impact on the regional knowledge base for development.

• Making SANEI a SAARC recognized body: The SC decided to take steps to make SANEI a SAARC recognized body in order to share a bigger platform and knowledge base for regional development.

• Introducing Research Exchange Program: In order to promote deeper inter-linkages among the economic researches institutes in South Asia, the SC decided to initiate bilateral research exchange programs among the member institutes and SANEI. Under this program, researcher(s) from a member institute in one country would get an opportunity to conduct joint research at a member institute in another country in South Asia.

The meeting was chaired by Dr. Ishrat Husain, Chairperson of SANEI SC and moderated by Dr. Mustafa K Mujeri, Coordinator of SANEI. Other members who attended the meeting included Dr. M Govinda Rao and Dr. Rajiv Kumar from India, Dr. Shanker Krishna Malla from Nepal, and Dr. G. M Arif (representing Dr. Rashid Amjad) from Pakistan.

Initiated in June 1998, the vision of SANEI is to develop beneficial networking among research institutions in South Asia to foster networking between them and global institutions and experts, build research excellence and promote policy relevant and collaborative research, expand outreach, and promote exchange of ideas and lessons learned for the purpose of development. SANEI is the regional partner of the Global Development Network (GDN) and presently 48 member institutes from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are registered as its members.