JEDDAH, 24 April 2008 — Dr. Ahmed Muhammad Ali, president of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), yesterday called for a coordination group of regional and international financial institutions to work out a comprehensive strategy to ensure security in food, agriculture and water management in Arab world.
Addressing a meeting of the group at the bank’s headquarters in Jeddah, the IDB chief said necessary studies must be conducted to prepare the strategy and human and financial resources must be mobilized to implement it.
“We should also work to improve education standard in the Arab world and make it compatible with labor market requirements,” Muhammad Ali said.
He also proposed that the group should involve in regional integration projects in the Arab world such as the projects to link Arab countries with a power grid, gas network, road network, railway and drinking water network.
“We should also support customs unions in order to trade and investment exchange among Arab countries.”
Speaking about the special program for the development of Africa, the IDB president said the last Islamic summit held in the Senegalese capital Dakar had endorsed the project, which will cost $12 billion. “IDB will contribute $4 billion to finance the program,” he added.
“I take this opportunity to call all members of the group to support this program aimed at combating poverty in African countries and helping them achieve the millennium development goals,” Muhammad Ali said.
He commended the group’s growing role in financing international development projects. “We have to adopt a united stand toward World Bank and identify our priorities while cooperating with it,” he added. The 11th meeting of the coordination group, hosted by the IDB, was attended by heads of the Arab Development Fund, the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (Kuwait), the Abu Dhabi Development Fund, the Arab Monetary Fund (Abu Dhabi), the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), AGFUND (Riyadh) and the OPEC Fund for International Development (Vienna).
The coordination group, established in 1975, seeks to boost developmental efforts and joint action among institutions and funds of the group to coordinate their activities regarding the project appraisal, financing, monitoring and loan management.
The coordination group so far provided an overall $80 billion worth of financing to boost socio-economic development efforts in developing countries.
The group also helped coordinate developmental projects and financing efforts in Central Asia worth nearly $1 billion in sectors such as transport, communication, electricity, industry, water, agriculture, housing, health, education, training and institutional capacity building.