Jeddah, 11 March 2012: At a meeting at the IDB headquarters with Mr. Alan Duncan, UK Minister of State for International Development, Dr Ahmad Mohamed Ali, President of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group, reviewed bilateral cooperation between the IDB and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in reducing poverty, and discussed recent developments in the region, including the G8 Deauville Partnership, which aims to support the transition process of Arab countries recently
affected by political changes.
Mr Duncan and Dr Ali agreed to work together to address the complex issue of unemployment, especially amongst the youth, by supporting initiatives and programmes that will improve education and employment prospects for young people in the Arab world. They signed an agreement on the exchange of staff between the two institutions to promote the sharing of expertise and experiences on reducing poverty and improving the delivery and impact of development aid.
Commenting on the agreement Dr Ali said “This agreement represents a milestone for the growing partnership between IDB and DFID and reaffirms our commitment to jointly address poverty in common focus countries. I am confident that it will pave the way for stronger and broader cooperation between the two institutions for the benefit of these countries”. Through this agreement, an expert from DFID is being seconded to IDB to further promote cooperation between the two institutions.
Mr. Duncan, said “Today, DFID and IDB have marked their shared commitment to working together to reduce global poverty. Having a member of DFID staff seconded to the IDB is a significant step forward in the relationship between the two organizations. Our discussions today identified a range of potential areas for joint action and I am looking forward to seeing the impact on the ground. In partnership, DFID and IDB can have even greater results for poor people around the world." Cooperation
between IDB and DFID is expected to focus initially on Palestine, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, in addition to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, which are the focus countries of the G8 Deauville Partnership.