South
Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE), together with the
South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM), Dhaka, organized the eleventh
edition of the South Asian Training Programme on CGE Modelling in Pokhara,
Nepal from 9-13 August 2018. The programme was organized in collaboration with
the Centre for WTO Studies (CWS), New Delhi and the Ministry of Industry, Commerce
and Supplies (MoICS), Government of Nepal.
The
training programme familiarized participants with the use of Computational
General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling as a tool for policy analysis and research.
The five-day event included sessions on the construction of Social Accounting
Matrices (SAM), calculation of SAM multipliers, and using GAMS software
application to run CGE models.
The
training was conducted by the Executive Director of SANEM, Dr. Selim Raihan, also
Professor of Economics at the University of Dhaka. 35 policymakers and young
researchers from six South Asian countries, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, participated in the event.
In the closing session, dignitaries—Mr.
Chandra Ghimire, Secretary, MoICS; Mr. Rabi Shankar Sainju, Joint Secretary,
MoICS; Prof. Indra Prasad Tiwari, Dean, School of Humanities and Social
Sciences, Pokhara University; and Dr. Posh Raj Pandey, Chairman, SAWTEE—all stressed
on the need for such capability enhancing initiatives. They highlighted that the
trainees, from six countries in the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC) region, were not just assets for their respective countries
but for the entire region.
List of Participants
