Danish Nobel Laureate in Physics Niels Bohr once said, ‘Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.’ Fortunately, he did not say the same thing about hopes and dreams even when these two have the same relationship with the future as predictions — all are premised on factors found or missing in the past and the present. Any talk about the future of sustainable development in South Asia, in the same vein, has to be a combination of predictions, with apologies to Mr. Bohr, as well as of hopes and dreams. And like all predictions, futuristic hopes and dreams are...

A South Asian individual, whether a man or a woman, is more empowered today due to recent developments that have taken place in the region compared to twenty years ago. For instance, percentage of people living below the poverty line has definitely decreased across the region even when the absolute number of poor people living in poverty remains staggeringly high. Figure 1 shows the average annual change in national poverty rates across South Asian countries. In Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, poverty levels are decreasing at much greater speed than their neighbours.

In many countries, especially India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and...

Each of the above mentioned ‘mega trends’ can either be a boon or a bane for South Asia depending on how the following ‘game changers’ impact them:

Take regional economy, for instance. Even when the rest of the world, especially Europe and the United States, were facing recession in recent years, most South Asian economies, with the exception of Pakistan, were doing rather well. This has helped the mega trends move in a positive direction — poverty and illiteracy levels have come down, health indicators are improving and more people are joining middle income bracket each year; economies doing well...

One can go on and on about the impact of various game changers, but ultimately the latter are shaped by policies and processes we adapt, in other words facets of governance. Contrary to the general definition of governance, i.e., planning and decision-making by the state and its institutions, there is a societal notion of ‘governance’ too which includes how decisions are made within a certain society or nation; who is involved in these decision-making processes and who has which powers to decide. On which evidence is planning based and which planning documents are taken as the basis for decision-making? How...

Given the bad news above, it might seem difficult to envision much good news. But there is a silver lining and I call it the ‘new regional order’ for the lack of a better term, for a model sustainable, peaceful and prosperous South Asia:

1. South Asia remains a highly militarized zone where militaries have been used against one’s own people, rather than foreign forces. A sustainable, peaceful and prosperous region will require a drastic reduction in the number of military personnel in all the countries. In fact, there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way conflicts are resolved...