Experts from various South Asian countries came together in Kathmandu on Tuesday to ponder on ways to navigate through the various challenges that the world is currently facing with two major wars raging.

The conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and other tensions and disruptions have affected the global supply chain and deepened the climate crisis. Members of South Asian think tanks discussed measures the region might take to mitigate the effects of the twin wars.

South Asia’s think tank community should come together to find a lasting solution, former Major General Dipankar Banerjee from India said at the event organised jointly by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Consortium of South Asian think tanks. “There are no other options left besides coming together.”

Pointing to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)’s lacklustre showing, Banerjee said that the role of think tanks had been important in finding a durable solution to the common crises that the world and South Asia are confronting. He added that there was immense possibility of cooperation among the South Asian nations.

Mallika Joseph, a senior fellow at Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace, noted that the world is confronting multiple challenges at present—from war and depletion of multilateralism to the rise of the far right, shrinking democratic space and China’s attempts to build inroads into South Asian nations.

“There is a decline and decay in multilateralism and a democratic deficit. Consensus is elusive and the Covid pandemic has exposed the weakness of multilateral institutions and no one talks about reform,” Joseph said. “The [UN} Security Council is not functioning well and is a mutually exclusive bloc. The Covid pandemic also created disorder and injustice.”

Joseph added that South Asia had forgotten Afghanistan. India was becoming less interested in the region due to its attention to and conflict with China, which has increased its footprint in the region. “The region is facing a myriad of challenges and there is duality prevailing inside India,” Joseph said. “Democracy is in decline and social media is also posing a threat. We should work for a common South Asian identity, should work together in areas like education, health, intra-regional trade, income generation, gender equality, climate change and many others.”

Meanwhile, Avadesh Mathur of India Foundation said that the world is in flux, with a disruption in the supply chain and the impacts of Covid pandemic still being felt.

He added that new blocs are forming and unipolarity has ended. “Even the United Nations Security Council failed to pass a resolution on the Ukraine and Israel-Hamas war and the world is heading towards chaos,” Mathur said. “Due to the war between Israel and Hamas, the India-Middle-East-Europe Economic Corridor is being derailed.”

The planned India-Middle-East-Europe Economic Corridor aims to bolster economic development by fostering connectivity and economic integration between Asia, the Persian Gulf and Europe and was announced during the G-20 Summit in India in September.

Colonel Nalin Herath of Sri Lanka who is associated with Institute of National Security Studies said that the world is facing challenges like war, unemployment, supply chain disruption, and the threats of Artificial Intelligence, among others. “It is estimated that around 300 million jobs will be lost due to AI,” he said. The crisis in the Middle East, Quad, China’s BRI, Indo-Pacific, Taiwan, Russia-Ukraine war, and the climate crisis are definitely inviting geopolitical tension.”

Herath added, “If the current crisis in the Middle East escalates, it will have a direct impact on oil supply. So South Asia will be impacted, its remittance will be affected and overall, it will impact the economic situation of the South Asian countries.”

Shambhu Ram Simkhada, a former ambassador of Nepal to Switzerland, said that the Russian invasion of Ukraine reflects the failure of Europe and the United Nations. “The world is in crisis and it is also a crisis of leadership,” he said. “Time has come for rethinking how nation states function.”

Geeta Madhavan of India highlighted how Covid pandemic had multidimensional effects on various aspects of Indian society, economy, education, employment and politics, among others. She also noted the issue of internally displaced people during the time of Covid lockdown and added that globalisation is facing setbacks and international trade has been greatly affected.

Also at the event, Faiz Sobhan of Bangladesh, Nishchal Nath Pandey of Nepal, Sangeeta Thapaliyal of India, Shaheen Akhtar of Pakistan, Ayreen Khan of Bangladesh, Nihar Nayak of India, Ujjwal Upadhyay of Nepal, Akriti Sharma of India, Karma Dorji Yanmgzom of Bhutan and Andreas Klein of KAS spoke on different dimensions of the “global disorder” and ongoing wars in Ukraine and West Asia and their implications in South Asia.

(This article was first published by The Kathmandu Post, Nepal)