The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) stressed that all of its institutions are mobilizing their efforts to confront the novel coronavirus.
These efforts have been exerted in the health, humanitarian, media, political, economic, educational, religious sectors and others to help overcome the impact of the pandemic.
The OIC’s secretariat had held an extraordinary virtual meeting for its executive committee at the level of foreign ministers on April 22. It later held other meetings chaired by its Secretary General Dr.Yousef al-Othaimeen to follow-up the implementation of the earlier meeting’s communique.
The Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) held on May 14 an extraordinary meeting via videoconference for education ministers, in cooperation with Saudi Arabia’s Education Ministry.
The meeting tackled challenges facing the educational system due to the coronavirus outbreak, especially that students are most affected by its spread after they were forced to study from home.
Meanwhile, OIC’s Islamic Development Bank Group launched on April 4 a $2.3 billion aid package for member countries and Muslim communities in non-member countries.
It includes three targets, namely addressing the pandemic, recovering from it, and resuming normal life, with aid covering the immediate short, medium and long terms.
Also, Othaimeen approved an initiative by OIC’s Islamic Solidarity Fund (ISF) to defeat the pandemic.
The initiative allocates a fund to help member states, especially the least developed, in order to enhance their potentials in their means to overcome the epidemic.
In coordination with the United Arab Emirates, chair of the Seventh Islamic Health Ministers Conference, the OIC held on April 9 an extraordinary virtual meeting for the ministerial committee on health at the level of ministers.
It issued a joint statement, in which it called for increased and speedy exchange of information transparently.
OIC’s International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA), for its part, held on April 16 a virtual medical and jurisprudence seminar on the COVID-19 outbreak.
And on April 6, OIC’s Islamic Organization for Food Security revealed its strategy to address the food security crisis in member states in light of the pandemic.
