Director General of the Islamic Organization for Food Security (IOFS), HE Mr. Yerlan A. Baidaulet led the Institution’s delegation attending the 15th Session of the Biennial General Cooperation Meeting between the Secretariats of the United Nations (UN) and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and their specialized organizations and agencies, which is being held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, until 20 July 2022. The IOFS delegation included Mr. Abdula Manafi Mutualo, Senior Liaison Officer.
The meeting is being co-chaired by Ambassador Tarig Ali Bakhiet, OIC Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian, Cultural and Social Affairs/Special Envoy of the OIC Secretary General for Afghanistan, and Amb. Khaled Khiari, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs. The meeting is being attended by the senior officials from the relevant OIC institutions and UN agencies.
Delivering his statement at the Meeting, the IOFS Director General while urging related UN Agencies to join hands with us to accordingly enhance IOFS capacity in responding the challenges identified in the agenda of food security and agricultural development, he, inter alia, recommended the UN-OIC Coordination Mechanism to be implemented within the following framework:
- Identifying complementarities and synergies within strategic documents and plans of action of Institutions working in the same area from both sides/
- Establishing a bilateral task force to constantly share relevant information, while evaluating and monitoring the implementation of agreed activities.
- Convening of intersessional thematic working groups meetings to assess the implementation of the Matrix, as two-year gap between the general meetings is a long period to understand the exact status of the cooperation that we all want to be result-oriented for the benefit of our Member States.
The first day was completed with the initial work of different working groups, and the IOFS played the role of rapporteur of the one on Economic Issues in which participants discussed issues related to cooperation on economic and scientific issues with focus on trade and investment promotion, agricultural development and food security, South-South cooperation, tourism development as well as poverty alleviation in common member states. They also reviewed implementation of joint activities since the last UN-OIC General Cooperation Meeting in July 2018.
IOFS Director General also held meetings with representative of the The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Office Cairo, Ms. Sahar Al-Jobury. Parties discussed about perspective of food security support for Palestinian refugees in OIC countries. Furthermore, several short bilateral meetings were conducted with Assistant Secretary-General for Middle East, Asia and the Pacific in the Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations, Mr. Khaled Mohamed Khiari; Deputy Head of the Permanent Mission of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to the United Nations Office at Geneva, Mr. Bader M. Al-Mutairi; Deputy Executive Director of the Women Development Organization (WDO), Ambassador Ehab Fawzy.
