D-8 Plans to teamwork with IFAD on Sets of Issues

Rome, Italy | January 31, 2008 by D-8 Secretariat

Assigned by the Head of States in the 5th D-8 Summit in Bali, May 2006, D-8 Organization is suggested to cooperate with some international organizations, the Secretary General, Dipo Alam met and discussed with the President of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Mr. Lennart Bage in IFAD Headquarters, Rome, Italy on January 23rd, 2008 on several issues of economic development that related with efforts to reduce poverty.

IFAD is an international financial institution and a United Nations specialized agency dedicated to eradicating poverty in the rural areas of developing countries where the majority of the world’s poorest people live. IFAD has 30 years experience working with the world’s poorest and hardest-to-reach rural communities. Participants in IFAD-supported agriculture and rural development programs and projects are expected to increase their productivity and incomes, and better food security.

One topic that discussed by the Secretary General and the President of IFAD was on the issue of migrant workers and their relevance to the remittances that they earned and send back to the countries, and relations to build microfinance institutions/industries in rural areas.

Recently IFAD published a document entitled “Sending Money Home, Worldwide Remittances to Developing and Transition Countries”. Since member countries of D-8 are suppliers of migrant workers in the world, the Secretary General of D-8 would like to invite the participants of IFAD in the program of D-8 to establish the Working Group on Migrant Workers, Remittances and Microfinance (WG on Remittances). The issue of remittances of migrant workers is very important for developing countries. Hundred fifty millions migrant workers worldwide sent some USD 300billion to their families in developing countries during 2006. These funds are used primarily to meet immediate family basic needs (consumption, education, health, shelters), but a significant portion are also available for savings, credit mobilization and other forms of investment.

D-8 will have the first meeting of their Working Group on Remittances in Dhaka, Bangladesh this year, and is expected will have a regular meeting every year to discuss experiences, potency, challenges, threat and opportunities of cooperation in these issues. It is expected that D-8 would propose a proposal working with IFAD, OFID, IDB, and the World Bank to establish and support the cooperation program on these issues. In addition, some issues on the agricultural development, renewable energy, and agro industry were also discussed during the meeting, including to discuss IFAD’s  Strategic Framework 2007-2010 for supporting ideas, when D-8 now is preparing a Roadmap 2008-2018 of cooperation, which also include agricultural and poverty reduction efforts in their cooperation program for next decade.

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