Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali, President of the Islamic Development Bank Group signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and Cambridge Overseas Trust to launch the Islamic Development Bank-Cambridge International Scholarship Programme.

Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali, President of the Islamic Development Bank Group signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and Cambridge Overseas Trust to launch the Islamic Development Bank-Cambridge International Scholarship Programme. The signing of the MoU was done on Thursday 9th April in a ceremony at the Trinity College of the University of Cambridge in the presence of Professor Alison Richard, Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. The MoU was countersigned by Lord Lewis, Executive Chairman of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust/Cambridge Overseas Trust. The ceremony was attended by senior officials of the university and IDB scholars studying across Europe. The joint programme is launched within the scope of IDB Merit Scholarship Programme for Science and Hi-Technology to place talented and meritorious students from IDB member countries and Muslim Communities in non-member countries for 3-year Ph.D. study and research at the University of Cambridge. IDB has been conducting the Merit Scholarship Programme for over 15 years now with the objective of developing human resources of its member countries in science and hi-technology sectors that they are lacking but crucial for their sustainable development. This joint programme with the Cambridge University, the second top-ranked university in the world in research and higher education, would significantly enhance IDB’s efforts to contribute to the human resources development of its needy member countries. In his speech at the ceremony, Dr. Ali congratulated the authorities of the University of Cambridge on their celebration of 800 years of the university, and thanked them for partnering with the IDB and giving a hand in its efforts of developing science-based human resources in third world countries. He stressed that such partnership with an outstanding institution of knowledge would help build future leaders in developing countries. Dr. Ali expressed that this partnership will grow in other areas of education and human development sectors and hoped that they can work together to create a prosperous global village. The Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge termed launching of this joint programme as a new dimension of the university activities to reach-out emerging and developing countries. She emphasized that the university has a moral role to play to harmonise relationship between developed and developing nations to cater for world peace and stability. She hoped that this partnership is an important step to achieve that aim. In his statement at the ceremony, Dr. Malek Shah bin Mohd. Yusoff, Head of the IDB Scholarship Programme Office stated that launching of this joint programme is a huge step forward for IDB in its drive to further internationalize and excel the image of IDB scholarship programmes to attract the best talents. Similar joint programmes with other top world universities in UK, rest of Europe, USA and Australia are in the pipeline.