OIC Set To Be Result-Oriented With Malaysia At The Helm, Says Sudan
By Jamaluddin Mohamad
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 31 (Bernama) — Sudan is confident that the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) will be more result-oriented once Malaysia takes over its leadership this October.
Sudan’s ambassador to Malaysia Mohamed Adam Ismail said Malaysia, which celebrates 46 years of its independence on Sunday, had proven its capabilities to deliver results through effective planning and implementation.
Malaysia’s vast experience and successes in developing the country in a relatively short period could add value to the 57-member OIC, he said in an interview with Bernama in conjunction with the 10th OIC Summit to be held in the federal administrative capital, Putrajaya, near here, on Oct 11-18.
“What differentiates Malaysia from the other Muslim countries is that Malaysia’s experience is compact. If you assign a specific task or project to Malaysia, the time spent to produce result will be very short.
“Instead of doing things in 30 to 40 years, Malaysia could do it in five or 10 years,” said Mohamed Adam who has been in Malaysia for the past six years.
“The OIC could take advantage of the fact that the people who lead this development in Malaysia are still alive and still available,” he said.
Mohamed Adam said that by giving Malaysia certain responsibilities in the OIC, the country could play a more active role towards turning the 34-year-old organisation into a more result-oriented one.
“In the next few years, OIC can expect to see more results and not just meeting … meeting … meeting,” he said.
Mohamed Adam said that with the revolution in information communication technology and the introduction of e-trade and e-economy, the OIC needed to seize the opportunities for the benefit of its members.
The Sudanese ambassador said it was important for the OIC to work in more practical fields like going into tangible projects to make the organisation more effective.
“OIC has to plan, implement, follow up closely, create units that can help the organisation to achieve results.
“We need to do that instead of just delivering speeches without any result. We have to stop saying ‘Oh…I See’,” he said, referring to the often-used pun about the OIC’s acronym.
He said the approach was important so that the ummah could see the progress and recognise it.
Mohamed Adam said OIC member countries needed to increase trade among themselves as their contribution within the group was considered still small compared with the respective members’ contribution to the international trade.
He said some countries were importing commodities from faraway countries when they could actually source them from their neighbours.
Muslim countries, he said, could reintroduce the barter trade system by exchanging goods as they could pay in kind, not cash.
If the OIC member countries pooled all their resources and technological capabilities, the net result would be booming development for them, he said.
Mohamed Adam said the same approach could be extended to producing high-tech products and defence equipment so that they need not be at the mercy of other countries in defending their land.
He said that during the Islamic civilisation, Muslims did not keep the sciences or information to themselves and even shared them with others, including the Europeans.
“If we unite economically and politically, we can have one voice and people will recognise us as a stronger ummah so that other nations do not take us for granted,” he said.
He said Muslim countries could stop the invasion and occupation by other countries by being more united.
“There is a saying in Arab that the wolf will always take the faraway sheep. When the sheep stay away from the crowd then it is easy,” he said.
Located in northern Africa, Sudan is among the pioneer members of the OIC, having joined it in 1969.