The Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC), Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has underscored the need for both inter-OIC cooperation and international partnership to enhance the popularization of knowledge-based economies in OIC countries. In his message to the International High-Level Conference on "Building Knowledge Economies for Job Creation, Increased Competitiveness, and Balanced Development" , which concluded yesterday its three-day deliberations in Tunis, the Secretary-General stressed the need to pool all available resources within and outside the OIC region to overcome the current national, regional and gender disparities in access to education, research and development. Emphasizing that the OIC Ten Year Programme of Action recognized the accumulation of human capital as a crucial factor in ensuring the realization of sustainable growth, employment generation and balanced development, Professor Ihsanoglu disclosed that the Vocational Education and Training Programme (VET) recently launched at the just-concluded Economic Summit in Istanbul, Turkey on November 9, 2009 represented a pro-active step in the effort by the Muslim World to regain its position as the world's citadel of civilization, science, learning and philosophy. --MORE
