Cooperation for ecological protection

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation nations will feed almost half of the world’s population if they are food secure.

A group of nations—China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—established the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2001 . India and Pakistan were added in 2017, and Iran in 2022. There are currently three observer states: Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia. Three of the nine dialogue partners are Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. With the later expansions, the SCO has grown stronger, but it has also lost some of its original strategic ambitions. That is, out of the eight South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) members, six are involved with SCO: two as members, one as observer, and three as dialogue partners. This means that South Asia has great expectations from the SCO—especially from China—the strongest economy among the SCO members.