Jeddah
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has underlined that the General Secretariat and OIC institutions have mobilized all their resources to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. They have each, within their respective fields of competence and mandate, taken up response initiatives at health, humanitarian, media, political, economic, educational, religious and other levels.
For its part, the OIC General Secretariat has emphasized that it will pursue its response campaign until the coronavirus is contained, and will continue to support the overall efforts to cushion the impact of the pandemic on the Member States.
As well as shifting to a remote work model since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in early March, the General Secretariat and OIC institutions have launched a campaign through the General Secretariat’s social networks with the aim of raising awareness on the coronavirus. The campaign under the hashtag (#OICCountriesCombat COVID19) has published array of content including hundreds of videos, graphics and other media materials on the OIC website and social media platforms. The aim is to showcase the efforts led by the OIC member states, the General Secretariat and OIC institutions in response to the pandemic.
In the same vein, the OIC Sawt al-Hikma (Voice of Wisdom) Centre has launched a short-film contest, attracting outstanding works with minimum resources despite the quarantine. Interactive submissions have been collected which focused on the coronavirus outbreak.
On the political side, the OIC General Secretariat held an extraordinary foreign ministerial meeting of the OIC Executive Committee, via video conference on 22 April 2020. The Secretary General chaired several other meetings to follow up on the implementation of the concluding resolutions of the Executive Committee’s meeting.
More recently, the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) held an extraordinary virtual meeting of the ministers of education on 14 May 2020. Held in coordination with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s education ministry, the meeting was intended to explore the coronavirus-induced challenges to the education system. The meeting was all the more important given that students are one of the most impacted as the coronavirus has shut down classrooms.
On 4 April 2020, the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB), a specialized organ of the OIC, launched a Strategic Preparedness and Response Programme for the COVID-19 pandemic. With a package of as much as $2.3 billion, the Programme aims to support the Member States’ efforts to prevent, contain, mitigate and recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, the Programme has benefited 21 Member Countries.
Equally significant, the OIC Secretary General has approved an initiative launched by the Islamic Solidarity Fund (ISF) to defeat the pandemic. The ISF has dedicated a fund to help the Member States, especially those that are the least developed, battle the coronavirus.
Regarding the health impacts of the coronavirus, the OIC in coordination with the United Arab (UAE), which assumes the chairmanship of the Seventh Islamic Conference of Health Ministers, held an extraordinary virtual ministerial meeting of the OIC Steering Health Committee. A key recommendation of the joint statement issued was the need to increase and accelerate transparent exchange of information on the pandemic.
On 16 April 2020, the Islamic Fiqh Academy, a subsidiary organ of the OIC, convened a jurisprudence, medical webinar. Topics discussed included Sharia rulings in relation to the pandemic.
On 6 April 2020, the OIC Food Security Organization unveiled its food security strategy to help the Member States avoid potential problems in the food supply during the coronavirus outbreak.
As part of the Member States’ response efforts to COVID-19, SESRIC (Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries), a subsidiary organ of the OIC, has launched its SESRIC COVID-19 Pandemic Database providing statistics on the spread of the novel coronavirus in the OIC Member States.
On 16 April 2020, the OIC Union of News Agencies (UNA), held its first annual webinar on the theme “Role of News Agencies in Supporting COVID-19 Response Efforts”. Indeed, the meeting came as part of the overall efforts by the OIC General Secretariat and its organs to stop the spread of coronavirus pandemic.—PR
