SAARC Member States established the SAARC Food Security Reserve (SFSR) in 1987 during the Third SAARC Summit (Kathmandu, 1987) with an objective to provide a reserve of food grains for meeting Food emergencies in member countries. The initial size of the reserve was 1,99,800 MTs which was enhanced to 241,580 MTs in 2002. It gave rise to the present SAARC Food bank which was decided by the 12th SAARC Summit (Islamabad, 4-6 January 2004). The Agreement was signed by the 14th SAARC Summit (New Delhi, 3-4 April 2007) and came into operation since October 2008. On completion of the ratification and notification of the Secretariat, the Agreement entered into force on 7 January 2013. So far nine meetings of the SAARC Food Bank board meeting has been convened and the 10th Meeting is schedule in Islamabad on 3-4 December 2018.
This online database is meant for data entry and retrieval within a closed network of Governing Board members of SAARC Food Bank. As per the recommendation of the 7th Meeting of the SFB GB a password protected interactive online database is designed to enable respective GB Members to input the country data as per the agreed schedule. At the second level, SAC as the master administrator of the database will assimilate the regional information based on the country data.