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The Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (Isacpa) has set a target to halve poverty by 2010 in the region and urged the political leadership to take effective steps to improve governance and law and order and fight corruption.

"A poverty-free South Asia is not an impossible dream," according to the executive summary of a cornmission report discussed at a seminar at Brac Centre yesterday.

"Such a dream has already found roots in millions of hearts in the villages and in the towns, in the fields and in the factories, in offices and in homes across ... South Asia."

The South Asia Centre for Policy Studies (Saceps) and the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a civil society think-tank, co-organised the discussion with economists, experts and other civil society members of South Asia to highlight, the commissions target five years ahead of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal to halve poverty by 2015.

Prime Minister's Principal Secretary Kamal Uddin Siddiqui, speaking as the chief guest, said the commission identified problems facing governance, transparency and accountability as common obstacles to cutting poverty.