The Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries informs that the acronym of the Centre has been changed from SESRTCIC to SESRIC by the decision of its Board of Directors in its Twentyninth Meeting, held on September 10-11, 2007 in Ankara, Turkey and has been approved by the 11th Session Islamic Summit Conference held in Dakar, Senegal on March 13-14, 2008. The Centre would, therefore, appreciate that its new acronym be used whenever necessary in any future correspondence.

SESRIC is working on to develop an interactive and dynamic motion chart module, called SESRIC Motion Charts (SMC), integrated with the BASEIND Database. SMC Module will allow the users to dynamically explore the trends of several indicators over time based on statistical data hosted in the BASEIND Database. The charts generated by the SMC Module will be rendered within the user's browser using the Adobe Flash technology. The produced charts will be time series based bubble charts including two indicators from the BASEIND Database which can be customised by the user to have either linear or logarithmic scale(s) with alternative bubble colour and sizes based on the related indicators from the BASEIND Database.

The agenda for the 11th Session of the Islamic Summit Conference held in Dakar, Senegal on March 13-14, 2008 focused on the following items:

• Implementation of the OIC Ten-Year Program of Action
• Adoption of the revised OIC Charter
• Two brainstorming sessions on economic cooperation among Member States, especially the African ones and Knowledge-sharing among Member States.

In accordance with the OIC Ten-Year Programme of Action target of facilitating the placement of OIC universities among the top 500 in the world, SESRIC is preparing the "Academic Ranking of Universities in the OIC Countries" by using the methodology designed by the Core Group and approved by the Foreign Ministers of the OIC Member Countries in May, 2007 in Islamabad, Pakistan.

In this connection, the Universities of the OIC Member Countries are requested to provide their inputs through filling in the questionnaire on University Ranking in OIC Member Countries.

The Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC), a subsidiary organ of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), is inviting project proposals that demonstrate/employ innovative approaches to poverty alleviation in the OIC Member Countries.

The Department of Economic Development of the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah – United Arab Emirates organized an international conference entitled “The Impact of Information and Integrated Statistical Systems on Socio-Economical Development” in collaboration with the College of Business and Economics- United Arab Emirates University during the period 8-10 November 2008. SESRIC presented a paper entitled “The Role of International Organizations in Developing Integrated Statistical Systems” during the conference.

A seminar on “The Emergence of e-Commerce and its Impact on Economies of OIC Member Countries” was co-organized by the SESRIC, IDB and the COMCEC Coordination Bureau in Istanbul, Turkey on October 28 – 30, 2008.

SESRIC have participated in the High Level Expert Group (HLEG) Meeting of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) of Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) which was held on 26-28 October 2008 in Tehran, which was organised by the ECO General Secretariat and hosted by the Statitical Centre of Iran (SCI).

The 24th Session of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (COMCEC) was held in Istanbul, Republic of Turkey, on 20-24 October 2008.

The Fourth Islamic Conference of Ministers of Higher Education and Scientific Research (ICMHESR-4) was held in Baku, Republic of Azerbaijan, from 6-8 October 2008.

The UN Assistant Secretary General, Head of the Office of United Nations in Geneva, H.E. Mr. Sergei Ordzhonikidze and the OIC Assistant Secretary General for Science and Technology H.E. Mr. Ali Akbar Salehi have officially opened the 2-days biennial UN-OIC General Meeting on Cooperation, on Tuesday, 8 July 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting, which is attended by high level delegations from both General Secretariat and Specialized Agencies of OIC and the UN, is an institutional framework of exchange of views, discussions and coordination between the two major international organizations. The Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC) has been represented thereat by Mr. Mehmet Fatih Serenli, Acting Director of Training and Technical Cooperation Department, the OIC focal point for technical cooperation activities.

The Regional Workshop on DevInfo took place in Beirut from 7 to 10 July 2008. The workshop has been organized by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in partnership with the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), UN country offices, and the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC).

The Experts Group Meeting (EGM) on Enhancing Intra-OIC Trade was jointly organised by the Centre, the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC) of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchange (TOBB) of the Republic of Turkey and the COMCEC Coordination Office and held at the campus of the Economy and Technology University (ETU) of the TOBB in Ankara on 5-6 July 2008.

The Sixth Session of the Islamic Conference of Tourism Ministers (ICTM) was held in Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic, on 29 June - 2 July 2008. It was preceded by a two-day Meeting of the Senior Officials on 29-30 June. Representatives from 32 member countries, the World Tourism Organisation (WTO), the Arab Tourism Organisation, Iran cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organisation, the General Secretariat of the OIC and its subsidiary, specialised and affiliated institutions attended the Conference. Dr. Savas Alpay, Director General, and Mr. Nabil Dabour, Acting Director of Research Department, represented the Centre thereat.

The Centre organised a training course on “Agriculture Statistics” at the Kazakhstan Statistical Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on June 24-26, 2008. The course was provided by an expert from the Turkish Statistical Institute in Turkey and was attended by 20 staff members of the Kazakhstan Statistical Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

35th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) was held on 18-20 June 2008 in Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

The Tourism Statistics Workshop was held on 16-18 June 2008 in Ankara, Turkey at Gazi Park Hotel. It was jointly organized by SESRIC, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, Turkish Statistical Institute and World Tourism Organization. 36 participants from ten OIC countries, namely Azerbaijan, Brunei, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey attended the workshop.

11th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis was held at Marina Congress Center, Helsinki, Finland, with the theme “Future of Global Economy”. The goal of the conference was to promote the exchange of ideas among economists conducting quantitative analysis of global economic issues.

One of the world’s best known series of conferences on development, the ABCDE conference took place at the International Convention Center in Cape Town (South Africa) on 9-11 June 2008. It was jointly organized by the World Bank and the National Treasury of South Africa.

The Centre organised a training course on “Agriculture Statistics and Food Safety Analysis” at the Uganda Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Uganda on May 26-27, 2008. The course was provided by an expert from the Turkish Statistical Institute in Turkey and was attended by 15 staff members of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Uganda.

The Centre organised a training course on “Quality in Statistics” at the State Committee on Statistics of the Republic of Tajikistan on May 26-28, 2008. The course was provided by an expert from the Turkish Statistical Institute in Turkey and was attended by 20 staff members of the State Committee on Statistics of the Republic of Tajikistan.

The Third Session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control will be held in Durban, South Africa on 17-22 November 2008. SESRIC will participate in the Session in its capacity to represent the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) as an observer international intergovernmental organisation to the Conference.

The Centre will organise a two-day training programme in the field of national accounts on 1-2 December 2008, in Ankara, Turkey at Hotel Ickale for Asian Member Countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in cooperation with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD). The training programme will be conducted in English and simultaneous translation to Russian will be provided.

Economic Cooperation and Development Review is an annual periodical of SESRIC which will feature interviews with eminent personalities, short articles on selected issues of economic growth, development and cooperation which are of immediate interest to the member countries, summaries of selected papers and reports prepared by the Centre itself, brief papers and news on current economic developments in individual member countries, interviews with eminent personalities in the Islamic world and elsewhere, and a section on titles and reviews of recently published books.

Microfinance has been developed around the world as a popular poverty reduction strategy. Many pioneering Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) all over the world have demonstrated that these institutions can deliver financial services to the poor that otherwise would not have access to these services. Various impact studies have reported the successful outcomes of microfinance programs in improving the incomes and reducing the vulnerability of the poor. Yet, despite the successful implementation of microfinance programs all around the world, millions of poor still cannot get access to the services provided by the microfinance institutions. In order to improve the outreach, scale and further growth of microfinance industry new financing ideas are needed.

The least-developed countries (LDCs) comprise a group of countries that have been officially identified by the UN as “least-developed” in terms of low Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, weak human resources and high degree of economic vulnerability. In 1971, the General Assembly of the UN approved the first list of LDCs, which at that time included 24 countries. In the following years, the number of countries included in the list increased steadily reaching 48 in 1994. The official inclusion of Senegal in 2001 and Timor-Leste in 2003 brought the total of those countries to 50.

In the rapidly changing world of today, with sweeping developments taking place in all facets of life, education is fundamental to the future prospects of most of the developing countries. Clearly, a good education policy must extend far beyond formal education, encompassing areas such as social policy, health policy and economic policy as well. Education does, however, remain at the core of human capital formation. The benefits of a good quality education not only provide returns to the individuals educated, but it also helps in alleviating poverty, facilitates economic growth and brings other social benefits to the society.

The Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC) has been preparing the Annual Economic Report on the OIC Countries since 1979 to serve as the basic background document for the agenda item of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) under Economic Affairs entitled “World Economy and the Islamic Countries”. The Centre has been also presenting the Report to the annual sessions of both the Islamic Commission for Economic, Cultural and Social Affairs (ISCOM) and the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC).

The substantial growth of the international tourism activity is one of the most remarkable economic and social phenomena of the past century. According to the World Tourism Organisation, the number of international tourist arrivals increased from 25.3 million in 1950 to 846 million in 2006, corresponding to an average annual growth rate of 6.6 percent. The revenues generated by those tourists, i.e. international tourism receipts, grew by 11.3 percent per annum over the same period. This rate of growth was significantly higher than that of the world economy as a whole making international tourism one of the largest categories of international trade.

The volume of merchandise trade among countries has been rapidly increasing in recent two decades along with the tidal wave of globalization that began in the late 1980s. In this respect, the growing levels of economic integration through the emergence of economic blocks in addition to the increasing number of trade agreements around the world, the formation of more flexible global production systems thanks to the developments in information and telecommunication technologies accompanied by the proliferation of multinational firms and foreign direct investments, and the improvements in modes of transportation that have resulted in lower costs have been the major contributors to the expansion in the global merchandise trade.

Value added of a sector means the sector’s contribution to the total GDP and is calculated as production minus intermediate consumption in that sector. In this report, it is aimed to investigate the value added structure of three major sectors (agriculture, industry and services) at the sub-groups1 level of the OIC. But the individual country performances will also be highlighted when it is striking.

The importance of savings and investments for the development and growth of any economy is well documented in the economics literature. Savings are the main source of funds to finance capital investment, while the share of total GDP that is devoted to investment in fixed assets is an important indicator of future economic growth for an economy. However, the levels of savings and investments in developing countries, including some of the OIC member countries, are not satisfactory. Comparing the 1993-1995 and 2004-2006 averages of gross savings and investments in fixed assets as a % of GDP for the OIC member countries shows that much has to be done in this regard.

Distribution of population within OIC member countries is not uniform.

The most crowded countries of the world; Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh with more than 100 millions of people and the scarcely populated ones; Maldives, Brunei, Suriname, Comoros, Bahrain, Guyana, Djibouti and Qatar with less than 1 million are among the member countries.

The developing world including the OIC member countries suffers from relatively poor living conditions (environmental, economic, and social) and low quality health care. This situation is reflected in many vital demographic indicators, showing that the developing countries are undergoing unfavorable conditions relative to the developed countries.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), despite many caveats, is generally accepted as an indicator measuring the total size of the economy in a given year. Taking this into consideration, it is obvious that there are huge size differences among the economies of the OIC member countries. While six, out of the 57 OIC member countries (Maldives, Guyana, Djibouti, Gambia, Comoros, and Guinea Bissau) produced less than one billion in 2006, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia recorded real GDP figures of over $200 billion . In the same year, only 14 countries realised real GDP figures over the OIC group average of $34,866 million.

The Commission on Growth and Development was launched in April 2006 in order to gather and evolve over a period of two years a best understanding of the policies and strategies that underlie rapid and sustained economic growth and poverty reduction. It brings together as commissioners twenty-one leading practitioners in government, business and the policymaking fields from both the developing and industrialized world. The Commission's audience is the leaders of developing countries.

Africa is the world's poorest and least developed continent. Failing economies, high unemployment, human rights abuses, armed conflict and inadequate social services contribute to the outward migration of African professionals. Studies show that more than a third of Africa’s highly qualified human resources are presently in the diaspora (people of African origin living outside the continent) and most of them appear to be unlikely to return to their countries. 

A recent US$30 million grant from the World Bank aims to support the ongoing Microfinance Support for Poverty Reduction Project, being funded through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF). It will help expand the outreach of financial services provided by the country’s microfinance service providers, especially women, in most of the provinces of Afghanistan. It will also help render the microfinance institutions, which have already started to diversify their funding sources beyond those provided by government and donors, more financially self-reliant.

According to the report of the World Bank Africa Development Indicators 2007 (ADI) based on more than a thousand indicators covering economic, human and private-sector development, governance, environment, and aid, many of the economies in Africa are seen to be growing fast and at steady rates. Over the past decade, Africa has recorded an average growth rate of 5.4 percent, which is at pace with the rest of the world and is supportive of the region’s ability to meet the Millennium Development Goals on poverty, health and other issues, and to help make it a significant investment destination for global capital.

The World Bank report Global Economic Prospects 2008 states that “resilience in developing economies is cushioning the current slowdown in the United States, with real GDP growth for developing countries expected to ease to 7.1 percent in 2008, while high-income countries are predicted to grow by a modest 2.2 percent”. It is noted that world growth slowed down slightly in 2007 to 3.6 percent from 3.9 percent in 2006, largely due to weaker growth in high-income countries. In 2008 global growth will go down further to 3.3 percent.

Mozambique, a country of 20 million, has been a strong economic performer in Africa, ever since the debilitating civil war ended in 1992, with the country realizing an average annual rate of economic growth of 8 percent between 1996 and 2006. This leads to a drop in poverty, where, between 1997 and 2003, close to 3 million people were delivered from abject poverty. This, in turn, brought a decline of 35 percent in infant and under-five mortality, and a 65 percent increase in net primary school enrollment, leading improvements in the Millennium Development Goals in these key areas.