18.03.2014, Jeddah, KSA - Two exceptional women respectively from Bangladesh and Morocco and two woman-led organizations from Senegal and Ghana have been selected as the laureates of the 9th edition of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Prize for Women’s Contribution to Development held under the theme “Women’s Contribution to Food Security).

This was announced by Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali, Chairman, IDB Group upon completion of the selection process for the Prize by an independent committee of expert women from different parts of the Muslim World.

The topics for this year’s Prize were “Recognizing Women’s Effect on Food Security” for the individual category and “Recognizing Women’s Collective Action to Food Security” for the organizational category.
According to the decision of the selection committee, the Prize for the individual category will be equally shared between: Mrs. Jahan Selina (Bangladesh) for her contribution to food security through the promotion of back-to-nature-farming towards increasing food production through the use of bio pesticide from neem leaves, organic seeds and the innovative natural compost from vermin; and Mrs. Fatima Ayat Mosa (Morocco) for her leadership role in empowering and mobilizing women through
apiculture, poultry farming and processing of argan oil to increase food productivity and enhancing marketing.

The prize for the organizational category was also shared by two organizations, viz., Association des Femmes de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Senegal) in recognition of its contribution to improve agricultural processes and promotion of inter-regional trade within West Africa as well as improving rural women’s contribution to food production; and Bright Generation Community Foundation (Ghana) for supporting small-holder women farmers in the marginalized Muslim communities of Ghana by introducing Islamic
(interest-free) microfinance loans, technical support and agricultural inputs towards increasing food production and thereby improving livelihood.

The Prize will be awarded on the occasion of the 39th Annual Meeting of the IDB Board of Governors to be held in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during 22-26 June 2014. The IDB Prize for Women’s Contribution to Development was established in 1427H (2006G) to draw international attention to the vital role women play in developing their communities and the world.