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involved in the eradication organization, and the aim is approach towards the It is important to meet the
of poliomyelitis and has to finance economic media. Since the election of media, especially in over-
continued its efforts in this development in our Member Secretary-General
Dr. coming Islamophobia. The
sense. States, at the same time as Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu from OIC is the only organization
encouraging economic Turkey, there has been a consisting of high-level
We are also heavily relations between the change of approach to make segment -- Heads of State
involved in advocacy Islamic countries and the the work of the organization and Ministers -- enabling
programmes Let me give Western world. better known among the direct contact with Western
you an example of what we general public. leaders and thus enabling
have done. In Nigeria, for a 0: Who are the ones them to agree on program-
long time, people did not benefiting from the It is also true that we did not mes and collaboration
want to participate in financial assistance? have a lot of branches. The between the Muslims on one
vaccination programmes, so office in Geneva is covering side and Western societies
OIC mobilized the Nigerian In general, it is the govern- the whole of Europe. Now, on the other. If there is no
religious leaders so as to ments of the Member States with the documentation and dialogue it's quite serious.
draw attention to the that are benefitting from the the magazine published by For instance, in the case of
benefits of vaccinating chil- programmes However, this the OIC we are more the Danish caricatures [of
dren. does not exclude non- known. It's true that in Mohammed], we met with
governmental organizations Geneva we were quite well- the European Union (EU)
We work in close collabora- (NGOs). NGOs have a spe- known, because we are very leaders and intervened in
tion with the Roll Back cial solidarity fund set up by active in the fields of human our own Member States
Malaria Partnership at the the Islamic Bank for civil rights, refugees, health, appealing for calm so as not
World Health Organization society and NGOs. There is migration, intellectuals, etc. to respond to the
(WHO) to fight malaria. We a two-sided approach. All the international provocation. It is important
are financing some organizations based here in to have a dialogue between
programmes in this field 0: How do you explain Geneva work in close the Western and the Muslim
with WHO. that we do not know a collaboration with OIC. We worlds.
lot for instance,
about
have,
your
We also have a fund for organization? agreements with OIM, 0: Why is your organi-
economic development. In HCR, WHO, WIPO and zation named the
it's
fact, OCHA. We are becoming Organization of the
Islamic
Its true that OIC has been
Development that is the lacking visibility. Earlier, we more and more visible in the Islamic Conference?
0 financing agency for the did not have an open field.
12 42009 Diva

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