South Asia 2060
Project Coordinators: Prof. Adil Najam (The Pardee Center) and Moeed Yusuf (United States Institute of Peace and The Pardee Center)
South Asia 2060 was a project of the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future that aimed to facilitate a dialogue amongst experts from various disciplines across South Asia and the world on the likely longer-range trajectories of South Asia’s future as a region. The project supported dialogue amongst leading thinkers within and beyond the region and collected the ideas generated by these thinkers on the future of the region in a book that was published in 2013.
For the purpose of this project, South Asia was considered to include the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC): Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The project sought specifically to focus on South Asia as a region, on how the futures of individual South Asian countries are likely to impact the collective region, examine current regional trends, possible future trajectories over the next half century, and the key factors that will determine whether these trajectories are positive or negative for the region.
The project facilitated writing and discussion on South Asia’s regional futures by eminent scholars, practitioners and policy-makers from within as well as from outside the region. To reach a wider cross-section of experts from a variety of disciplines, the project also worked with existing forums focusing on South Asia.
Events
A Pardee House Seminar on the topic also took place on Nov. 20th, 2013.
Seminar on “Visions of a Region’s Future: South Asia 2060” with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore
August 12, 2010, 5.30-7.40pm
Venue: Possibility Room, Level 5 Central Public Library, Victoria Street, Singapore
Participants: Amb. Gopinath Pillai, Chairman of the Management Board, Institute of South Asian Studies, Prof. Frank Korom, Professor of Religion and Anthropology, Boston University, Manu Bhaskaran, Partner and Member of the Board, Centennial Group, and Dr Amitendu Palit, Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies
Read more here.
2010 EPIIC International Symposium Tufts University Institute for Global Leadership, Boston
February 21, 2010. Panel on South Asia 2060
Participants: Prof. Sugata Bose, The Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs and Director of the South Asia Center at Harvard University, Dr. Stephen Cohen, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, Prof. Jamshed Barucha, Provost and Senior Vice President of Tufts University, and Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy, Chair of the Physics Department at Quaid-e-Azam University, Pakistan Moeed Yusuf, Pardee Center Research Fellow
The 12th Annual Sustainable Development Conference of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad, Pakistan
December 21, 2009. Panel on South Asia 2060
Participants: Amb. Nihal Rodrigo, former Sri Lankan Ambassador and former Secretary General of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Dipak Gyawali, Pragya of the Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, Prof. A.K. Enamul Haque of the United International University in Bangladesh, Dr. Ishrat Hussain, former Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan and Director of the Institute of Business Administration, and Prof. Amitabh Mattoo of the Jawaharlal Nehru Univeristy, New Delhi, India.
Read more here.
Publications
A collection of essays written as part of this project – each written in an authoritative manner and focusing on a particular aspect of South Asia’s regional futures – was published in 2013 by Anthem Press, London.