Conflict, Cooperation, and Sustainable Rural Development in South Asia: Assessing the Role of Diplomacy, Regional Politics, and Development Policy

Abstract

In South Asia sustainable rural development is influenced by agricultural productivity and economic condition however the political stability, diplomacy, cooperation among South Asian countries, institutions, and environmental risk have an influence as well. The dynamics of conflict and cooperation, regional dynamics, development policies and sustainable rural development are discussed with focus on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. This research design is a documentary design as it is an interpretative and exploratory research in the qualitative research. Evidence is gathered from peer reviewed scholarship and from publicly available documents of international and regional development organisations, the UN, governments and regional institutions. The analysis technique used here is interpretative documentary analysis and reflexive thematic analysis, which aims to find out the common meaning, connection, conflict and implications about the process of the implementation in the set of evidence. The five identified themes that were meshed were: (1) conflict and political instability as vulnerability factors in the rural areas; (2) diplomacy and regional cooperation as factors of enabling cooperation; (3) regional politics and regional geopolitical competition as factors of hindering cooperation; (4) development policy, institutional capacity and conflict sensitivity; and (5) integrated regional strategies for sustainable rural development. The analysis indicates that rural vulnerability has many facets, and is context specific. Conflict can have an impact on livelihoods, markets, infrastructure, food systems and institutional delivery and can make climate and economic shocks more critical. It is also clear that, in many ways, the opportunities for working together to strengthen resilience are real – but only with political will, institutional continuity, and context-specific implementation in the water, food systems, climate change adaptation, disaster preparedness and connectedness, and more. The conceptual framework of peace and diplomacy, cultural cooperation, institutional capacity, environmental resilience and inclusive rural development is being enriched with this study, but in a complementary way.