The Heads of State or Government of the SAARC countries set up the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation with the intention that it should examine the causes and outcomes of the resilience of poverty in South Asia, “to distil the positive lessons from successful and sustainable experiences on the ground to diagnose what went wrong with past development interventions, and to identify critical, concrete and practical elements for a coherent strategy to alleviate poverty.”Reference: Meeting the Challenge: Report of the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation