ABSTRACT
The South Asian region as a whole is not on track in meeting most of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), although there are cross-country variations. This is despite the fact that the region has performed reasonably well in terms of economic growth. The paradox is that the biggest country in the region could not do well in terms of social and environmental indicators despite good economic performance, whereas some smaller countries which might not have performed so well economically have shown better performance in social indicators. Another paradox is that, though South Asia still maintains to be among the richest biodiversity in the world, its environmental performance is far from satisfactory. We argue that regional cooperation can be one of the ways out to these paradoxes. South Asia’s remarkable economic performance has been registered despite an absence of substantial economic cooperation in the region. Though better social performance can be achieved without much of regional cooperation, such cooperation is likely to accelerate the process as there is substantial scope for learning from each other within the region.
