Project Information
SAARC Forum
Group Project Description
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was formed in 1979 with the overall purpose of fostering cooperation among the seven South Asian nations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It was initiated by the smaller nations of South Asia which felt that the existence of a regional forum could counterbalance India’s efforts to establish itself as a regional superpower. Members hoped that SAARC might someday play a major role in ensuring geopolitical stability and economic growth in the region.
SAARC, headquartered in Kathmandu, works towards enhancing regional cooperation on a number of issues, including environmental, economic, social, and security concerns. Based on a multilateral framework, bilateral issues are kept to a minimum and subsumed into multilateral concerns. SAARC has held special forums and summits dedicated to regional issues, such as the “plight of the girl child,” economic development, water and power, communication, and regional free trade.
Group Project Objectives
There are a range of critical problems confronting the South Asia region. Our goal is to bring about a deeper understanding of the causes and potential solutions to some of these problems, including understanding how they are interrelated within the region. The intent is that representatives from each of the member states included in our SAARC Forum find common ground to address and resolve some of the crucial problems in the arenas of women’s empowerment, urban environmental challenges and poverty alleviation, and political challenges especially pertaining to religious and ethnic conflict today. The SAARC Forum will also give us insights into how the South Asian nations tackle their socioeconomic problems and negotiate with their neighbours on these issues. This project should also enable students to gain an understanding of the myriad factors involved before a state — in South Asia or elsewhere — can act on an issue.
Assignment
There are five countries in our Forum:
*If you are taking this course towards your INTL Middle East geographic concentration, you must sign up to be in the Pakistan group. If there are too many Middle East-focused students to accommodate in that group, then you can also be in the Bangladesh group.
Given that we are holding classes remotely all term, I have modified this requirement so that it is actually an individual paper that each student will be writing, but you will share your work with each other. I recommend you share resources with other students researching other topics about the country about which you are writing. Victoria Mitchell, the International librarian, has provided you with a Panopto lecture in Canvas on how best to conduct research for these papers. In other words, we will not be having “live” interactions for this requirement (as we are planning to discuss the course materials); the next live Zoom class meeting will be held on the very last day of class.
The three separate issues are:
1. Women’s Empowerment: Literacy, Political Participation and Legal Reforms Due: May 11
2. Urban Environmental Challenges and Poverty Alleviation Efforts Due: May 18
3. Political Challenges and Religious/Ethnic Conflict Due: May 27
Due to Memorial Day on May 25, discussion of this will be on Monday June 1st
Each student is to do the following:
a. Thank you for submitting your ranked choices for the countries and topics. You have been informed as to what you have been assigned, which is also accessible above (click on each of the three issues to see which student is writing about which country). We have done our best to accommodate your preferences.
b. Now that you know what topic in which country you are researching, conduct background research on your country’s relationship to SAARC, and its involvement in the area you are researching;
c. Prepare a written brief (report) 12-15 pp. addressing what are the crucial problems confronting your country in this area. Reports are to be typewritten, double-spaced, written in report style (as opposed to term paper style, so use bullet points as appropriate), and include bibliographies. Email your paper to Professor Weiss (either as a Word or pdf document) by noon on the due date and she will then link the papers by themes to this website.
Then for the following Wednesday, prepare a 5-7 minute PowerPoint presentation with audio of the most important points you have made in your paper. Please first convert your pptx file to a video file (mp4) by going to “File”, “Export”, “Create a Video” in your Powerpoint program. (If your version of Powerpoint does not support this feature, please simply email the file and we will convert it.) Email it to Michelle at: mnikfarj@uoregon.edu. She will then group all five presentations together and create a playlist noting the week and topic within Panopto (in Canvas). We will rely on these papers and PowerPoint presentations as sources for writing the final essay.
Tips for Writing Great Reports
On-Line Resources
There are a number of South Asian newspapers now on the web which are good resources for current news. A great resource to start at is: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/southasia/cuvl/, though there are ample other resources out there. Beware of the accuracy of commentaries on the web. They are only as reliable as people’s opinions are reliable. You should cross-check the credibility of statements made by individuals on websites before accepting them as valid.
Regional news sources include The Daily Star (Bangladesh), The Times of India (India), The Himalayan Times (Nepal), Dawn (Pakistan), and The Daily News (Sri Lanka). Additional reliable English-language sources from India include The Economic Times and a weekly round-up of news The Week. Additional reliable English-language sources from Pakistan include The News, The Express Tribune and The Frontier Post. (Please inform Professor Weiss if any of these links are no longer working.)
Schedule
For the Monday class of the three weeks of our forum, Professor Weiss will post a Powerpoint presentation with audio to introduce the issue under investigation for that week.
For the Wednesday class of the three weeks of our forum, you will see five PowerPoint presentations (9 during the second week) done by your classmates of the key points in their respective reports.
The reports will form a basis for responses for the final essay.