With the end of the cold war there has been an increased awareness and concern regarding arms reduction and arms control in Asia. Insurgency, terrorism, gun-running and drug trafficking, each intertwined with the other in different degrees have risen high on the security concerns of several parts of Asia.

The most defining security-related preoccupations of the 21st century are terrorism, insurgency, the spread of small arms and the proliferation of WMD. We in this part of the world know that international terrorism inspired by extremism or fanaticism did not start with 9/11. But it surely did imprint itself on the consciousness of the international community on that date. And as the world seeks to fashion a new global and regional order from the debris of the cold war, we must creatively pursue a policy of co-operation and dialogue. Pursuant to this goal, we have welcomed the provisions of U.N. resolutions concerning peace and security and combating terrorism and will continue to adhere to it. We hear a lot these days about the indiscriminate proliferation of weapons of mass destruction feeding a black market of non-state actors. Symmetries in the existing non-proliferation regimes are grossly unequal and would not serve the purpose of military de-nuclearization. South Asia is a potential nuclear flash-point and Nepal sits astride a region where three nuclear nations exist in close contiguity. Therefore, we have all the reasons to be sincerely proactive towards every or any peace initiative in the region.

Peace and security is not just an absence of war, but about presence of co-operation and regional integration in security and socio-economic fronts. A huge economic dividend and social transformation awaits us if peace emerges across Asia. Figures reveal that only a 0.5% move in GDP from defense to education could make the dream of universal primary education a reality within the next decade. This could very well be the first vital step towards social engineering of far reaching importance. Fortunately there is evidence that the leadership in South Asia is beginning to awake to this reality. The Islamabad SAARC declaration is an acknowledgement of such a vision. However, the goals must not remain on paper. For this we must transform the fault lines of conflict into silver linings of peace. We must change the borders of hostility into bridges of trust and regional co-operation. Our peace efforts and mechanisms have got to be sincere and unrelenting if they are to bear fruit. It must be a sustained and proactive pursuit and not an intermittent reactive response to our security needs and problems.

In several parts of Asia, insurgency is the major challenge in the process of a planned social transformation and economic growth. Beginning from Iraq in West Asia across Afghanistan to India and Nepal, insurgency has become the priority security agenda. Both Indonesia and the Philippines face similar problems. Therefore the region must combine and co-operate to address the issue of insurgency.

Asian economies have opened up to foreign capital and markets to varying degrees. The economies of East and South East Asia have opened up more rapidly and been particularly dynamic in the field of economic growth and social development. Nevertheless, poverty remains the single most challenge confronting most Asian countries, particularly the least developed ones like Nepal. Nepal has tried to attain balanced and sustainable development with a major focus on poverty reduction with some success. We still have a long and difficult development road to travel to attain an acceptable economic standard and quality of life for all our people. Nepal is very rich in water resources. We must harness the resource for the mutual benefit of the countries in the region. Nepal has a lot to offer in tourism. Nepal has benefited from the technical and financial support from friends in the donor community in her development endeavors and looks forward to enhanced future support to meet the development challenges in the 21st century.

India and China, two of our good neighbors, have vast and rapidly expanding economies. Nepal should try and benefit from its location between the two giant engines of growth by becoming an useful economic hinge between them.

With the establishment of regional organizations such as ASEAN, SAARC, BIMSTEC; regional co-operation has increased and due efforts must be made in the future to further improve their effectiveness, so as to better strengthen Asian economic integration. Asia is home to almost 60 percent of the global population. Consequently, enhanced co-operation and better economic integration will not only enhance the common prosperity of the people of Asia but it would also contribute significantly to the global economy. Coordinated and balanced development between economies, nature and societies is crucial to protect the environment, contain conflict and attain sustainable development.

The People’s Republic of China has made a leap forward in the gigantic task of economic development and social transformation under the dynamic leadership of the Communist Party of China. It has brought great economic development and transition to the new social order. Countries like Singapore and Malaysia have done well in social and economic transformation by adapting slightly different multi-party models. Some other Asian nations continue to have militaristic or semi-totalitarian regimes and are struggling to move towards a more open polity.

In my own country Nepal, political change started in 1950s. A full scale multi-party democracy was first introduced for 18 months in 1959-60 and again since 1990. Nepal is now fully committed to democratic ideals with sovereignty in the people, multi-party democracy, human rights, rule of law and constitutional monarchy at its core. Although these ideals have faced certain challenges in the past couples of years, the restoration of a coalition government with a multi-party character has raised hopes that the system is coming back on the rails. The National Democratic Party (RPP), to which I belong, is a liberal democratic party and is the third largest party in the country. The third general conference of the RPP was a show-case of internal democracy with free and fair competition between three candidates for the chairmanship. The objective of RPP is to move ahead towards development, peace, prosperity and social security along with human dignity for all our people in harmony with the peoples of Asia and the rest of the world.