About the SCO: It is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation of the Eurasian Nations.
- Its 21st meeting of Council of Heads of State was held on 17 September 2021 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
- Secretariat- Beijing
- Official languages– Russian and Chinese.
Policy:
- It pursues its internal policy based on the principles of mutual trust, mutual benefit etc.
- Its external policy is conducted in accordance with the principles of non-alignment, non-targeting any third country, and openness.
Goals:
- strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness among the member states;
- promoting their effective cooperation in politics, trade, the economy, research, technology, culture, education, energy, transport, tourism, environmental protection,
- Making joint efforts to ensure peace, security and stability in the region;
- Moving towards the establishment of a democratic, fair and rational new international political and economic order.
Origin and evolution:
The SCO’s predecessor-Shanghai Five: A security agreement formed in 1996 between China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.
SCO: In 2001 in Shanghai, with the addition of Uzbekistan with Shanghai Five members, a new organisation with deeper political and economic cooperation-SCO was formed.
- the SCO Charter was signed in 2002 and entered into force in 2003.
Its membership has since expanded to eight states, with India and Pakistan joining on 9 June 2017.
- The SCO has four observer states, Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia.
- It has six dialogue partners, namely Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka.
Organizational Structure:
- The Heads of State Council (HSC) is the supreme decision-making body in the SCO. It meets once a year and adopts decisions and guidelines on all important matters of the organisation.
- The SCO Heads of Government Council (HGC) meets once a year to discuss the organisation’s multilateral cooperation strategy and priority areas, to resolve current important economic and other cooperation issues. It also approves the organisation’s annual budget.
- SCO has two permanent bodies —
- Secretariat based in Beijing, China and
- Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
- RATS serves to promote cooperation of member states against the terrorism, separatism and extremism.
