An Architecture of Cooperative Mechanisms for
Addressing Nontraditional Security Challenges:
South Asia 20251
Tariq Karim
Recapitulating the Challenges In 2025, total global population is 8.108 billion, having registered an increase by a little under
18% over the base figure of 6.892 billion in 2010. Significantly, South Asia (that is the region
comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka)
has a combined aggregate total of 3.372 billion, registering a staggering 135% increase over its
figure of 1.431 billion fifteen years earlier. Its youth bulge, that is the ratio of population between
those under 15 and those over 65, has also widened with the former comprising 34% and the latter
declining to 5% of the total population. Whereas the average density of the population in this
teeming region was 387 persons per square mile in 2010, it has taken a quantum jump to 1578
persons per square mile. This figure is calculated taking into account that, collectively, the nations
of the region have been able to protect their vulnerable coastlines from being inundated by sea-water
rises as well as prevent any massive loss of land by flood-related erosion of river embankments, a
malaise that had plagued most of the countries until the 2010s.
Nevertheless, the sheer increase in population and the cumulative effects of glacier melts in the
Himalayas and depleted ground water aquifers has significantly tightened availability of fresh water
supplies. Although the momentum of increase of the population juggernaut has been slowed, the
sheer volume continues to keep it growing and invasively moving forward, taxing the capacity of
the region in a number of related areas. Collaborative human ingenuity has continued to result in
higher crop yields per acre, but the balance continues to be tenuous. At the same time, even though
in the aggregate, economies have maintained relatively high growth rates, the steady expansion of
the youth bulge continuously challenges the capacity of the countries to totally eradicate the numbers
of jobless. The demographic-economic landscape is also marked by increased internal migrations
within countries from rural to urban centres, and between countries themselves, reflecting the
intra-development gaps still persisting. Any one, or a combination of some or all, of these factors
could tax the already somewhat stretched capacities of governments.
All the countries, and their respective governments and peoples, are already having to cope with
worsening environmental conditions, the cumulative and deleterious effects of global warming.
Himalayan glaciers have shrunk from 500,000 square kms coverage to 160,000 sq kilometers.