The fourth South Asian people’s summit, as a parallel representative forum of civil societies of South Asian countries, was conceived as an opportunity to formulate the demands and aspirations of the people of this region. The main idea was to assemble by the sidelines of SAARC summit and propose some concrete suggestions, besides issuing a joint declaration comprising overall vision of the South Asia, within the agenda under discussion by the heads of the states and governments.

As hoped and planned, this event soon became as an independent initiative of the peace lover of South Asian societies. It became and acknowledged as a platform that lobbied for the resolutions of conflicts and for the socio-economic justice in the region. Besides attracting many well known intellectuals, peace lovers and human rights activists, it succeeded in establishing a group of civil society organizations closely linked with each other for the pursuance of goals mentioned above. The independence of this initiative, from state shenanigans, was evident from the fact that two summits were organized despite of state’s failure to convene SAARC summit. The main slogan of third people’s summit organized in Islamabad was exclusively reflected this scenario by saying that “If leaders don’t meet, let people meet and let people lead.”

Fourth South Asian People’s Summit (2-4 January 2004)
South Asia Partnership-International and South Asia Partnerhsip-Pakistan, in collaboration of South Asian Association for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) organized fourth South Asian People’s Summit on January 2-4, 2004 at Islamabad. The summit was organized in different circumstances since SAARC summit was being convened and Prime Minister Vajpaee was expected to attend the meeting amidst increasing peace gestures from India and Pakistan that generated hope for comparatively softer visa policy for civil society activists. Since heads of the states and the governments had succeeded in at least sitting on one table, especially of India and Pakistan after unprecedented army build up on borders, the South Asian peoples Summit opted to raise the issue of “ Livelihood Securities, Peace and Regional Cooperation” as the main slogan of the summit.

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