South Asia is emerging as one of the most dynamic regions of the world economic system. With an economic growth rate of around six percent over the past two decades, the region has demonstrated its potential as significant economic entity in the global context. Despite its appreciable recent achievements, South Asia continues to be home to the majority of world’s poor. Linked with this is the fact that per capita energy consumption-a sound indicator of economic and social development of a country, is very less in the region. But the current trend of rising energy demand is centered around using more and more of fossil fuels thereby having a very deleterious effect on environment. It is now being increasingly realized that judicious use of energy mix with larder share of renewables can be effectively used for poverty alleviation of people of the countries in the region. There is much larger scope of accelerated development of renewables-be it wind energy and small hydro in Afghanistan, solar energy, wind energy, waste-to-energy in Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, solar energy, wind energy and waste-to-energy in Bangladesh, small hydro and solar energy in Nepal and Bhutan and wind energy and solar energy in Maldives. Huge potential of biomass energy remains untapped from all countries of the region. With a view to increasing cooperation between countries of the region, ASSOCHAM and Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, Govt. of India is organizing South Asia Conference on Renewable Energy 2006 on 18-19 April 2006 in New Delhi.
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