The format of the upcoming conference on Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity Challenges and Opportunities (Tashkent, 15-16 July 2021) will provide a unique opportunity for senior officials, experts, and policymakers from the two regions to gather for the first time in one place. They aim to lay the foundation stone for a new trans-regional security architecture with the vision of building a space of equal opportunity that takes into account the interests of all parties involved.
This development of cooperation can be a model of inclusiveness, creating an enabling environment in which each country can realize its creative potential and work together to solve security problems.
This is necessary because of the inseparability of security and sustainable development - the interest of Central and South Asian states to come together in the face of common challenges and threats that have a negative impact on ensuring the continued prosperity of the two regions.
Among these challenges, experts single out problems such as drug trafficking, terrorism, the epidemiological crisis, climate change, and water scarcity, which the states of the two regions could confront by joint efforts - by identifying common problems and taking coordinated measures to overcome them.
In particular, Russian, European and Pakistani experts point to the need to use the platform of the upcoming conference to build a system of collective struggle against drug trafficking.
The relevance of this is argued by the continuing reputation of Afghanistan as the main drug hub in the world.
This is confirmed by data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, according to which, in the past five years, 84% of global opium production comes from Afghanistan.
In these conditions, according to the Pakistani expert executive director of the Center for Global and Strategic Studies of Pakistan, Khalid Taimur Akram, " until there is control on both sides and improvement of the drug situation in the region, this state of affairs continues to serve as a material fuel for destructive forces terrorism and cross-border crime."
Foreign experts also pay special attention to the problems of climate change, which has a direct negative impact on the economies of the two regions. The year 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record.
Such extreme weather events, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, have a double shock effect on most countries of the world, including Central and South Asia.
Moreover, Central and South Asia is an example of a water-deficient macro-region. Such situation makes them vulnerable to the global climate change process.
In the emerging environment, both regions are becoming aware of the climate crisis, which should be accompanied by the formation of a common understanding of the need for joint efforts.
Given these factors, experts call on the states of the two regions to take advantage of the international forum provided by Tashkent to identify concrete plans to jointly combat climate challenges.
In particular, the adoption of coordinated steps by the states towards the active use of nature-saving technologies and increasing the energy efficiency of national economies in order to minimize the negative impact of extreme weather conditions is considered very necessary.
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