Vienna, Austria, 17 January, 2016 - President of Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali, has called for support, closer cooperation and continuation of efforts to mobilize additional resources to meet immediate needs of displaced Syrian refugees and the affected neighboring countries. He also urged for more assistance for reconstruction and rehabilitation of areas affected by an earth quake in Tajikistan, last December.

Dr. Ali made the remarks in Vienna, Austria, while addressing a meeting of the heads of institutions of the Arab Coordination Group on 17 January, 2016.

Furthermore, Dr. Ali extended an official invitation to all heads of the Coordination Group member institutions to take part in the upcoming Annual Meeting of the IDB Board of Governors to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia, 15-19 May 2016. A joint symposium with the Coordination Group will be held with the IDB Group to shed light on the role of the Coordination Group in supporting development in South East Asia.

The meeting, which took place at the headquarters of the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), approved the Vienna Declaration on the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. It also saw the launching of the third phase of the “Arab Development Portal” project where OFID and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) signed an agreement for implementation of the portal.

The participants then expressed satisfaction over the present level of ongoing cooperation within the coordination mechanism set up nine years ago in Kuwait for trade finance and export credit insurance. The issue of a planned dialogue between donors in the Arab region and OECD DAC was also discussed at the meeting and the participants also agreed to proceed with the Deep-dive initiative with the World Bank.