The Developing Eight Organization for Economic Cooperation (D-8) strengthened its agricultural cooperation by signing a memorandum of understanding with the Islamic Organization for Food Security (IOFS) in Nouakchott, Mauritania, on Friday (17/3). Ambassador Isiaka Imam, the D-8 Secretary-General, and his counterpart, HE Yerlan Baidaulet, the IOFS Director-General, signed the MoU at the margin of the 49th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (IOC CFM), held at Nouakchott’s International Conference Center Al Mourabitoune.
The MoU will enable the D-8 and IOFS to collaborate on aquaculture and fisheries, capacity building, private sector development and engagement, entrepreneurship support in agribusiness, youth employment opportunities, and the development of climate-smart agriculture.
To effectively implement the MoU, the D-8 and IOFS are currently developing a Joint Action Plan, which is expected to be signed in Astana next June. The Joint Action Plan delineated detailed items of cooperation, ranging from hosting conferences to the development of capacity-building programs.
During the signing, the two organizations’ leaders also discussed the shared need to ensure that their cooperation can contribute to addressing the global challenges in food security. They further elaborated on the proposed joint activities to be conducted in the near future. As a start, Director General Baidaulet invited Ambassador Imam to the High-Level Forum on Agriculture in Astana, Kazakhstan, in June 2023. The IOFS also invited the D-8 Organization to contribute articles for their journal.
The D-8 Organization is an intergovernmental grouping that was established by Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Türkiye in 1997. The D-8 is an organization that focuses on economic cooperation among its member states and with external partners. One of the crucial features of the D-8 Organization is a trade facilitation scheme known as the D-8 Preferential Trade Agreement (D-8 PTA).
The IOFS is a specialized organization for food security within the OIC. It was established upon the initiative of H.E. Nursultan Nazarbayev, the first President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in 2011. The IOFS organized its first General Assembly in 2016. Headquartered in Astana, Kazakhstan, the IOFS has 37 members.
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