SAARC Summit agrees the Dev Fund

NEW DELHI: The SAARC Summit has agreed to operationalise the SAARC Development Fund and establish the South Asian University, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here today.

Addressing the closing ceremony of the 14th Summit, Singh said that summit also agreed to create a SAARC Food Bank and set up the SAARC Arbitration Council.

"The cooperation and accommodation that have characterised our deliberations and negotiations show that our countries are ready for a transformation of SAARC into an effective instrument of regional advancement," Singh said in his closing remarks.

Observing that India has come to occupy the chair at an important moment in the region's history, he said that the region faced the challenge of being home to the largest concentration of poor and illiterate people.

"We must win decisively the war against poverty, ignorance and disease. I cannot agree more that the touchstone of our efforts to reinvigorate SAARC must be the difference we make to the lives of the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak. This is our highest mandate", he said.