Paris, France, 12 November 2021 – President of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and Chairman of IsDB Group, H.E. Dr. Muhammad Al Jasser, says the Bank firmly believes that the Global South has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and expertise that can be shared within the South and with the North to help shape the world's response to development challenges, such as the digital and the vaccine divides, among others.

He made these remarks at the 4^th Edition of Paris Peace Forum, during his interventions at a panel discussion on « Achieving the SDGs: South-South and Triangular Cooperation».

The IsDB President further elaborated on how the Bank has contributed to effective South-South Cooperation through its Reverse Linkage capacity sharing programs. He enumerated various examples and described the collaboration between the Pasteur Institute Center of Excellence in Dakar, Senegal, and IsDB for sharing expertise and technical knowledge with ten other laboratories across the African continent as a great and impactful South-South cooperation to build capacity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

«Cooperation in all its dimensions and forms, be it South-South, North-South, and Triangular Cooperation, is the path for recovery and achieving the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. In this respect, a coordinated, international response is indispensable»,  the IsDB President stated.

Sitting on the panel along with Dr. Muhammad Al Jasser, were the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Her Excellency Sheikh Hasina, and Former President of the Republic of Niger, His Excellency Mahamadou Issoufou.

‘’South-South cooperation is the DNA of the Islamic Development Bank that is helping us, in Africa, to achieve our development agendas. IsDB has been supportive of us in our partnership’’, stated H.E. Mahamadou in his final remarks.

The Paris Peace Forum, held every year from November 11 to 13, brings together global leaders and heads of international organizations, as well as leaders from civil society and the commercial sector, and thousands of citizens from across the world, to discuss establishing forms of collective action. It completes the current international agenda of multilateral conferences by introducing a specialized event for global governance concerns, similar to how the World Economic Forum of Davos deals with economic and financial issues and the Munich Security Conference deals with security matters.