Results of OIC for Africa

(PANA) - Senegalese Minister of Foreign Affairs Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, has disclosed an amount of US$ 10 billion will be raised by 2010, under the Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development (ISFD), to enable African country-members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) benefit from.

"We have discussed again and again so that the US$ 10 billion we need for the fund be really operational and efficient on ground.

"We launched an appeal one more and insisted member countries make a special effort so that by the end of 2008, US$ 6 billion would nave been raised, to reach the 10 billion target during the next two years," Mr Gadio said in an interview with the PANA.

The head of the Senegalese diplomacy, whose country organised the 11th summit of sovereigns, heads of state and government of the OIC, from 13 to 14 March 2008, said there are "concrete" results after the debates, relative to the African debt.

"We talked ‘concrete’, namely the reduction or cancellation of the debts of African countries owed to member countries of the Ummah.

"We went beyond the accessory to raise bottom line problems," Gadio said, adding that the issue of the African debt was one of the priorities of the new OIC chairman, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade.

The Senegalese chairmanship of the Islamic conference also intends to devote itself to the restoration of peace in the countries of the Ummah currently in conflicts.

"President Wade is going to concentrate on the Darfur and Somalia. He is also going to prepare the Ummah to work for peace in the Middle-East, so as to put an end to the suffering of Palestinians, while giving pride of place to Africa so that it be ready to receive investments from Arab and Asian countries," the Senegalese minister added.

The Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development (ISFD), launched in May 2006, is aimed at promoting solidarity within the Ummah where there are wealthy petroleum-producing countries and small highly indebted countries such as Sierra Leone, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, Uganda or still Bangladesh.

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