The Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, is set to head today for Istanbul, Turkey, to take part in the 1st Meeting of the Development and Cooperation Institutions (DCIs). The meeting will be jointly held over 13 and 14 May 2009 by the OIC General Secretariat, the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA), and the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC). The meeting will pool together, for the first time ever, high-ranking representatives of major DCIs operating in OIC Member States. The meeting seeks to build stronger and closer partnerships among DCIs as part of development efforts deployed in the OIC Member States, particularly as poverty alleviation was identified by the OIC Ten-Year Programme of Action (TYPOA) as one of the daunting challenges facing the Member States.
