H.E. Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu Secretary General Of The OIC on Poverty Alleviation

Poverty is a complex issue and needs to be tackled on a range of fronts including, but not limited to, improving economic growth. Poverty remains one of the big challenges to socio-economic development of majority of developing countries, especially in Sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia. Besides, this phenomenon has brought about problems such as illiteracy, malnutrition, disease and even crime. Global food crisis further worsened the already precarious conditions of poor people in these countries.

To cope with the bane of poverty, the OIC has to reinvigorate its machinery for economic growth and cooperation among member countries through comprehensive mobilization of the resources, within and outside the OIC community. A new approach to economic cooperation was, therefore fashioned out to ensure that all stakeholders are sensitized on the need for the accelerated transformation of the economies of OIC Member-States and the welfare of their peoples.