Vienna, Austria, 19 January 2016 – The President of Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali has called on the Organization of Economic Cooperation & Development, and the Arab Coordination Group to scale-up their efforts in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Dr. Ali stated this in Vienna on 18 January, during a high level dialogue on development between Arab Coordination Group and traditional donors, and members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The theme of the 2016 Dialogue was “Achieving the 2030 Agenda”.

During his keynote speech titled “Strengthening Partnerships to Implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, Dr. Ali underlined the need for development partners to take charge in driving their development process, enhancing quality of development cooperation, promoting South-South Cooperation, developing country capacity, and establishing regional knowledge hubs to scale-up the development process.

In his remarks, Mr. Hani Sonbol, the Acting CEO of IDB’s trade arm, International Islamic Trade Financing Corporation (ITFC), highlighted the importance of trade in promoting economic growth and sustainable development in IDB Member Countries.

The 2016 Arab and OECD-DAC Donors’ dialogue deliberated on the role of major donors in supporting the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for SDGs. The Dialogue deliberated on various financing mechanisms to facilitate implementation of the SDGs, in particular, using Official Development Assistance (ODA) as a catalyst for attracting additional financing resources from the private sector.

Other key topics discussed during the dialogue included (i) enhancing cooperation for implementation of the “Energy for Poor” program in Africa, and (ii) the role of private sector in fragile and conflict-affected countries, especially in the Arab region.

Heads of 10 Arab donors and 23 traditional and new donor-members of the DAC participated in the dialogue. The Arab-DAC Dialogue on development is an annual event which deliberates on the international development agenda, and discusses critical issues to monitor the implementation and progress of the agreed actions. This year, the event was attended by over 100 participants representing major international development financing institutions, the European Union, major bilateral donors as well as a
number of senior international experts.