On the second day of the official humanitarian visit to Afghanistan, 18 April 2022, His Excellency Mr. Yerlan A. Baidaulet, Director General the Islamic Organization for Food Security (IOFS), witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with World Food Program (WFP) for bilateral cooperation on joint projects in Afghanistan especially the Afghanistan Food Security Program (AFSP), as mandated by 17th Extraordinary Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers on the Situation in Afghanistan, held on 19 December 2021 in Islamabad, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The WFP was represented by Ms. Mary-Ellen McGroarty, its Representative and Country Director in Afghanistan, and the IOFS by Ambassador Daulet Tazabekuly Yemberdiyev, Director of Cooperation & Humanitarian Aid Office.
Separately, the IOFS Director General continued his bilateral meetings, one with H.E. Maulavi Sharafudin, Deputy State Minister in-Charge for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs and responsible for the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA), to whom thanks and appreciation were addressed for his critical role in ensuring transportation of six (6) OASIS Boxes for water cleaning and filtration produced and supplied by Bondh E Shams that were handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture & Livestock of Afghanistan a day earlier. The two sides also discussed other important initiatives on humanitarian food assistance that may be jointly implemented in Afghanistan in near future.
Another bilateral meeting was with Mr. Shafiqullah Attayee, CEO of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment (ACCI) to follow-up previous consultations on the matter of strengthening Afghan businessmen relationship with those of other Member States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The Director General reiterated his previous call for the ACCI to closely work with the IOFS Subsidiary, the International Islamic Food Processing Association (IFPA), a B2B platform that could facilitate access to intra-OIC business environment as well as with the Republic of Kazakhstan, the IOFS hosting country.
In fact, the Director General and the accompanying delegation visited the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Kabul to pay respects to H.E. Mr. Yessengeldiyev Alimkhan, the Kazakh Ambassador to Afghanistan, for his unwavering support and for having contributed, along with his staff, for the successful holding of the IOFS humanitarian official visit to Afghanistan that ends on 19 April 2022.
The day ended with an iftar hosted by the Director General to diplomats of some OIC Member States accredited in Kabul and international and local organizations based therein with the participation of H.E. Maulavi Sharafudin, Deputy State Minister in-Charge for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs and responsible for the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA) and officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responsible for OIC file.
