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The independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation identified "policy" driven approaches at government levels along with replication of "best practices" as the way out to over-come chronic poverty of the populous region, reports BSS.

"We have laid emphasis on prudent macro-economic policies and replication of best practices of poverty alleviation initiatives along with enhancing gender equities, developing a poverty data base, mobilisation of poor, pro-motion of rural technology and expertise sharing in our report," convenor of the commission Dr Kamal Siddiqui said.

Talking to newsmen on the sidelines of a follow-up seminar on SAARC summit decisions concerning the Commission re-port, Siddiqui, also prime minister's principal secretary, said the commission identified problems of governance, transparency ,and accountability as common obstacles in fighting poverty.

Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) of Prof. Rehman Sobhan organised the seminar, chaired by former Indian foreign secretary Prof. Muchkund Dubey and joined by a number of economic analysts, officials from regional countries including Bangladesh.

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Islamabad last month–accepted the commission report while Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Bhajpayee promised 100 million dollars to raise a fund for its implementation.

The commission has set a target to halve the poverty level by 2010 against the global target of 2015 in an apparent bid to create pressure on the South Asian countries to expedite the anti-poverty campaign.

Dr Kamal Siddiqui said the South Asian countries exercised a number of "prescriptions" like subsidy reduction, deficit budgeting and disinvestment of state-run enterprises "thinking one day these will help eradicate poverty".

He said Bangladesh now undertook a new approach to fight poverty under the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), which would be formulated internally without seeking any foreign consuitancy or financial assistance.

Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman who co-authored the Commission re-port, said they identified the "best practices" cutting across sectors in different countries as "a garden of hope" and pin- pointed "pro-poor growth" for overcoming poverty.

"Efficient documentation and appropriate dissemination of these lessons of best practices can offer a critical ray of hope to create a more conducive South Asian ground reality," he said.

On the other hand, he said, "growth can't be left for rich alone and it has to be pro-poor "other-wise poverty will never go".

Prof. Rehman Sobhan identified synchronisation of regional and national agenda as an "inherent problem" of regional initiatives to tight poverty.

He echoed the participants' views in criticising donor- driven development approaches saying "they continued to suggest things like disinvestment and subsidy withdrawal but these did not help in overcoming poverty".

Referring to Indian experiences of development, chair of the seminar Dubey said the foreign-aided NGOs approach often contradicted the mainstream poverty policy of the local government bodies like panchayet in India.

He endorsed the Commission emphasis on "policy instead of individual initiatives" and said "South Asia has huge resources, needed to be mobilised to fight poverty".