SCO Summit 2022: Activities and Improvement.

During the 21 years of its existence, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has successfully gone through the institutional building and formation of multilateral cooperation mechanisms in priority areas. At the same time, the Organization approaches the Samarkand summit with a clear demand for reform and improvement. The June 2002 SCO Summit in St. Petersburg saw the signing of an SCO Charter that outlined the Organization's goals and principles, structure, and major activities. Permanent SCO bodies were later established, namely the Secretariat in Beijing and the Regional Antiterrorist Structure in Tashkent. Ministerial meetings were formed in the political, security, trade and economic, cultural-humanitarian, and other fields. A system of partnerships between the SCO and other international and regional organizations, including the UN, CIS, ASEAN, CSTO, CICA, and other bodies, was further developed based on signed memorandums of understanding between the Secretariats. As enshrined in the Charter, the principle of the Organization's openness facilitated the development of forms of interaction with other countries interested in joining the SCO. In 2004, at the SCO summit in Tashkent, Mongolia was the first country to be granted observer status.

In 2009, at the Yekaterinburg summit, Sri Lanka and Belarus were the first countries to be granted the status of a dialogue partner. In 2017, the SCO summit in Astana concluded the process of joining the Organization in the capacity of member states of India and Pakistan. The SCO's institutional development has promoted its transformation into an important platform for multifaceted interaction among member states, observers, and dialogue partners and an influential actor in international relations. However, SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming believes that entering its third decade, and the SCO faces new conditions and challenges. Today's world is undergoing complex and profound changes. The international political and economic order and security architecture are faced with various crises, posing very serious challenges to peace and development. In addition, the Organization's activity in previous years has accumulated a number of organizational and other problems that need to be addressed, including the need to expand mutually beneficial cooperation in a number of areas, increase the level of regional connectivity, and strengthen the effectiveness of the standing bodies - the Secretariat and the...