India's economic success over the last decade and a half, and more recently Pakistan's economic progress under the military government, have drawn attention. While these and information technology in India may be the main South Asian success stories drawing attention currently, there are a number of other successes that have been around long enough to be considered sustainable. Successes are defined as initiatives, interventions, cases or models that have been sustained for several decades, can be replicated, scaled up, have had a significant impact and exported to the rest of South Asia or beyond. The ones documented in this article rely on the tapping of social capital. This article explores various conceptualizations of social capital and argues that the latter is an important reason for the three ‘successes’ considered. It is further argued that a good understanding of the relevant concepts of tapping social capital will enable development via social mobilization, participation, collective action, public-private and local-foreign partnerships.
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