OIC moves to reduce inequality amongst Islamic States
Posted by African Press International on March 19, 2008
<From Mohammed Legally-Cole)
Member states of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) have agree on ways to reduce poverty and revise their charter to addresses the huge imbalance in wealth between rich and poor countries in the Islamic world at the 11th OIC summit held in the Senegalese capital Dakar.
The Senegalese Foreign Affairs Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said that there are about 57 member states of the OIC are amongst the richest and the poorest in the world. This was expressed at a press conference on 11th March 2008, following a meeting of some 30 Foreign Ministers who had spent the day putting final touches on the revised OIC’s charter. The new charter was set to be adopted by some 37 heads of state at the end of the two-day OIC summit in Dakar, Senegal.
“The plan is not just to provide ‘Zakaat’ (charity) to poor states but a genuine mechanism by which the wealth of Islamic states can be more equal,” he said. An anti-poverty fund which the OIC first announced in May 2007 would total US$10 billion, although so far only US$2.6 billion has been committed reports say.
Foreign Minister Gadio said that the OIC must put special emphasis on African development. “The holding of this summit in Senegal must be remembered as a landmark for (when Islamic countries started seriously getting involved in) Africa, just as the summit held in Malaysia (in October 2003) was a landmark for Asia,” he said.
OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu agreed. The proposed changes to the OIC charter symbolise a “turning point for the organisation” he said at the press conference “This will be the first change to the charter in almost 40 years,” he said. “The OIC is not what it was in 1972. The scope of the OIC has increased and the world we are living in today is no longer that of the bipolar Cold War.”
The exact changes to the charter are yet to be made public but Foreign Minister Gadio suggested they would be extensive and focused on helping reduce the disparities between rich and poor Islamic countries. He and Ihsanoglu also said that they were confident the revised charter would be approved by OIC heads of state.
Other OIC officials welcomed the proposed changes. “The time has surely come to move from talk to action, from vague deliberations to implementation with practical measures for the benefit of our people,” Bangladesh‘s Foreign Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told the Bangladesh publication The Daily Star.
The application of an economic, social and cultural partnership will be one the “major axes” of Senegal chair of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), President Abdoulaye Wade announced on Thursday March 13th in Dakar at the opening ceremony of the 11th summit.
“Today, we’re all concerned with the necessity of dynamic economic, social, and cultural partnership, Abdoulaye Wade said just after his designation as new chairman of the Islamic Ummah board. “‘What is paradoxical is that the Islamic Ummah is made of rich and a majority of poor countries while solidarity is one the essential basis of Islam”, Abdoulaye Wade insisted.
From the 3rd action plan elaborated during the extraordinary summit in Mecca, we must boost economic, social and cultural relations to the same level as the links between the OIC member countries, according t Mr. Wade. “The Islamic solidarity must not be restricted to assistance” In his speech, President Abdoulaye Wade also called for a debt cancellation in favour of the OIC member countries.
About 45 heads of state and government took part to the opening ceremony. Senegal is organising this summit for the second time, after hosting it for the first in 1991.
It could be recalled that the OIC was created in 1969 to defend the interest of Muslims in the world and to strengthen the relations between Islamic countries, in reaction to the burning of Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. It has 57 members.
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has set the date, 1st January 2009 as the deadline to put in place a Trade Preferential System expected to be the “starting point to reach the 20 percent ratio in trade” among the Islamic organisation’s member countries.
This ratio has been set by the Ten-Year Programme of Action adopted by the 3rd extraordinary session of the Islamic Summit Conference in the Mecca, 7-8 December 2005, “to promote and reinforce trade liberalisation within the OIC community.”
According to a document on “draft resolutions on economic affairs” presented in the 11th OIC session that ended in Dakar, Friday, the Islamic organisation “lauds the successful conclusion of the first and second rounds of trade negotiations for the establishment of a Trade Preferential System among the OIC states (TPS-OIC).
The OIC urges the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) member states “to finalise the signature and ratification of the protocol on the Preferential Tariff System (PRETAS) and the original rules of the TPS-OIC by the closest deadline to make the TPS-OIC operational as of 1 January 2009.”
At this prospect, the chairman of the Permanent Committee for Economic and Trade Cooperation (COMCEC) and the OIC secretary-general have been invited “to coordinate their efforts in order to have the quorum of ratifications required for the PRETAS and TPS-OIC original rules to be effective to make the latter system become a reality by the deadline.”
The economic and trade cooperation strategy adopted by the COMCEC provides for cooperation between the sub-groups of member countries and is based on principles focusing the private sector, economic liberalisation, integration into global economy, as well as the inviolable nature of economic, political, legal and institutional bodies in member states, and their international obligations, according to the same source.
Senegal recognized the extent of the “exceptional privilege” to host an Islamic Ummah meeting for the second time, President Abdoulaye Wade, chairman of the 11th Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) session, said in Dakar on Thursday 13th March 2008.
The Summit “is not only that of Senegal,” but that “the entire Africa,” from the north to the south, President Wade said in his opening address.
He lauded “the massive presence” of the Islamic Ummah heads of state and government, who have come “in great number, sometimes from a distance” to take part in the Dakar meeting. This is to him an expression of their “esteem” for Senegal, its authorities and Africa.
The president of the Malaysian senate, Pant Mohammad Hamid Panwenth, representing his country’s prime minister, who chaired the 10th session, opened the deliberations of the 11th session, a ceremony marked by 11 addresses at the plenary session room of Meridien President Hotel.
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) must not only be a platform to exchange views, but also a forum against the libelous attacks on Islam and for solidarity with destitute Muslims. “The OIC must not only be a platform to exchange views, but also a forum to launch the fight against libelous attacks, for solidarity with the millions of poverty-stricken Muslims throughout the world,” Mohammad Hamid Panwenth said on Thursday.
He added that the OIC would have to be a forum to protect the Ummah against extremism and xenophobia, while contributing to the social development of Muslim populations and the fight against justice and equity.
“We cannot afford to lag behind,” he added, stressing that the OIC “must play its part” in the same capacity as the international community in the fight “against poverty, hunger and diseases.”
“The OIC must not give up” in its fight for justice, notably in view of the current international geopolitical environment, he indicated. In this connection, he stressed the need to look for solutions to “end the sufferings of more than half a century of the Palestinian people” and support the establishment of a Palestinian sate.
However, for the Malaysian Prime Minister, Abdallah Bedews, whose message was read by the president of the Malaysian senate, the Muslim leaders need first to work “together,” “remained united.” Therefore, he stressed the need to cultivate the “political will, saying that he was convinced that “the Ummah can get over its differences.”
Cheikh Tidiane Ndongo of “Nassroul Islam” school in Dakar had the privilege to recite before the heads of state, sovereigns and heads of government the Holy Koranic verses as a blessing at the opening of the 11th Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Summit.
However, in another development, The Secretary General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, was re-elected for a new term of office during the closing meeting of the 11th Session of the Islamic Summit Conference held in the Senegalese capital Dakar.The new Charter sets the new term of office for OIC Secretary General at five years instead of four years as it was in the previous Charter.The incumbent Secretary General has one year remaining in office thereby bringing the overall length of his term to six years. The Member States commended the Secretary General for his performance during the past years as well as for his efforts in preparing the Dakar Summit.
Professor Ihsanoglu expressed his thanks and gratitude to the Member States for their confidence and support for the Organisation and the Secretary General, and reaffirmed his determination to continue playing a positive role in serving the OIC Member States and the Islamic World.
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