Istanbul, Turkey, 29 May 2016 – The first World Humanitarian Summit, convened by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, took place in Istanbul on 23 – 24 May. The summit highlighted the need for world leaders to place humanity – people’s safety, dignity and the right to thrive – at the heart of global decision-making.

A delegation from the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group, headed by the Bank’s President Dr. Ahmed Mohammad Ali, attended the 2016 summit, along with representatives from governments, United Nations institutions, regional and international development organizations, and business and civil society.

The summit provided a platform for participants to exchange experiences and showcase innovations and good practices in addressing humanitarian challenges. It put particular emphasis on preventing and ending conflicts and forming a global commitment to address humanitarian aspects of forced displacement in different parts of the world.

In line with the objectives and directions of the summit, seven Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), including IsDB Group, issued a joint statement highlighting their collective commitment to respond to the displacement crisis and to complement ongoing efforts to meet the needs of refugees and internally displaced people in host countries and countries of origin.
The MDBs will focus on prevention and preparedness measures by increasing resilience to shocks for countries and regions that are most exposed to fragility. They will structure their coordination at a working level by establishing a coordination group to identify countries for joint assistance.

A special session on Islamic Social Finance was chaired by The Ruler of Perak State, Malaysia, H.R.H. Sultan Nazrin Shah. The President of IsDB Group announced the on-going extensive engagement with the World Bank Group, United Nations agencies and potential private sector partners to develop a sizeable Islamic Social Finance initiative. The initiative will be include a well-governed framework and mechanism for collecting and managing resources under both grant and non-grant schemes. Dr. Ali
said that IsDB will use its trust funds mechanism to channel more resources to meet urgent life-saving needs of people affected by crises.

During the summit IsDB organized a seminar on the Resilience Development Initiative for IsDB member countries through Leveraging on the Innovation of Islamic Social Finance. The goal of the seminar was to help member governments, development institutions, private and benevolent sectors and other partners come to a shared understanding of the resilience-related gaps and challenges, and to diagnose the main bottlenecks in the current response to crises. Seminar participants discussed the scope,
implications and response to the increasing demand on supporting countries and communities to build resilience to risks associated with poverty, crisis and conflict.

The IsDB delegation also attended the launch ceremony of Turkey’s program to transform its healthcare system, which includes building health campuses under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. By 2023, Turkey aims to deliver up to 60 new PPP hospital facilities across the country with 50,000 high-quality hospital beds, at a total investment cost of up to US$ 20 billion. Starting with PPP in hospitals, IsDB will continue to support Turkey’s PPP program by supporting the construction of
high-quality hospitals.

For more information:

isdb.org
worldhumanitariansummit.org