His Excellency Dr. Bandar Hajjar, President of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) officially opened the Third Islamic Development Bank Group Symposium, aimed at promoting the internal learning culture of the Group, as well as supporting institutional governance.
The event aims to support the successful on-going transformation of the Bank, through disseminating evidence-based best practices and promoting innovative development. The symposium was attended by high ranking officials from the Asian Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, who were invited to share their own experiences.
The experts spoke jointly on collaborative investing, tackling climate change, innovative approaches towards Islamic finance, and mainstreaming gender equality into the IsDB Group’s operations cycle. These core-learnings all contribute directly to the President’s plan to restructure the bank from a development bank to a bank of developers, with a focus on human capital being crucial to his vision. In particular, the Bank is focused on facilitating science, technology and innovation led solutions for the development sector, facilitating partnerships across the public and private sector and launching projects that enable people to drive their own economic and social progress at scale. With this in mind, the Symposium comes at a critical moment, as the IsDB renews its commitments to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to achieving greater results under its 10-Year Strategy 2015-2025.
His Excellency said, “We believe that Development can be sustainable when we place people at the heart of our strategy, and serve and engage with not only the Public Sector, but also the private sector, NGOs, Civil Society, Philanthropic Institutions, Scholars, Universities and Research Centers, all of whom collectively form the ‘Developers’ network, working together to support development. I have placed significant emphasis on investing in Human Capital, as it plays such an important role in increasing productivity, industrialization and economic growth”.
Earlier this year, the IsDB reached a milestone by raising corporate governance standards and establishing the Board’s Operations and Development Effectiveness Committee. The Board Committee leads the efforts to enhance development effectiveness in the Bank by ensuring that IsDB programs and activities are achieving the desired outcomes while using resources more efficiently.
Original source: IsDB
Published on 24 October 2018
