IOFS Highlights Food Security Issues at the Senior Official Meeting Preparatory to the 38th COMCEC Ministerial Session in Türkiye

IOFS Highlights Food Security Issues at the Senior Official Meeting Preparatory to the 38th COMCEC Ministerial Session in Türkiye
27 November 2022

On 26 November 2022, His Excellency Mr. Yerlan A. Baidaulet, the Director General of the Islamic Organization of Food Security (IOFS), led the Organization’s delegation to the Senior Official Meeting Preparatory to the 38th Ministerial Session of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC), being held in Istanbul, Republic of Türkiye.

In his address, the Director General highlighted the centrality of food security issues within the economic domains and interests of all Member States. In such context and while emphasizing the excellent relationship the IOFS enjoys with COMCEC, he shared his hope in strengthening to even higher ground such bilateral coordination towards ensuring food security, sustainable agriculture, and rural development in the OIC geography within the framework of 16 programmes that are the core tools for the implementing of the IOFS 2031 Strategic Vision. Accordingly, COMCEC was invited to further support other programmes of the IOFS, including, the successful implementation of Africa Food Security Initiative (AFSI), which is the result of the resounding success of IOFS celebration of 2022 as Year of Africa, and the Afghanistan Food Security Program (AFSP), mandated by the 17th Extraordinary OIC Council of Foreign Ministers held last December in Islamabad, Pakistan.

The Senior Officials are therefore expected to adopt all related documents, including the Resolutions of the 38th COMCEC Ministerial Session on 27 November 2022, and the same is to be opened on the following day under the chairmanship of the His Excellency Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of the Republic of Türkiye.

On the sidelines of the Preparatory gathering, the IOFS Director General had a bilateral meeting with His Excellency Mr. Yousef Khalawi, Secretary General of Islamic Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (ICCIA), with whom a bilateral agreement was discussed to coordinate private sector-related activities between the two sister Institutions.

It should be mentioned that Dr. Ismail Abdelhamid, Director of Programmes & Projects, and Mr. Abdula Manafi Mutualo, Senior Liaison Officer, are the remaining Members of the IOFS Delegation to the 38th COMCEC Ministerial Session.