MANAGING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD

October 14-15, 2008 (Tuesday Wednesday) 9.00am - 6.00pm Lecture Hall 3, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya
Tel: 0379673735 (Nur Masliza / Sok Wai), 3714 (Akmal), 3766 (Rozila / Rupa), 3698 (Edzura) Fax: 0379673662 Email: cpds_conference@um.edu.my
The Islamic world, broadly divided into North and Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Gulf states, and Central Asia, varies in terms of their levels of socio-economic development, poverty incidence, income distribution patterns, literacy, employment levels as wells degrees of backwardness, Wide disparities exist in the Islamic world with some parts enjoying substantially high levels of living while more than half of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) member countries are classified as being amongst the least developed nations the of world trapped in extreme poverty. The existence of these wide disparities within and amongst the Islamic nations should not have existed if there is strict adherence to the Islamic principles of distributive justice, unity and social responsibility. Thus, there is a need for the Islamic world to come together to address these issues to help eradicate extreme poverty and formulate strategies that would enable member countries to find sustainable solutions to move away from poverty and remain out of poverty. The First Islamic Conference of Environment Ministers held in Jeddah in June 2002 reviewed the major challenges faced by the Islamic world in the field of sustainable development, materialized mainly in the poverty, illiteracy, accumulation of foreign debts, degradation of economic and social conditions, disequilibrium between population growth and available resources, the weaknesses of technical capabilities, the lack of expertise and skills in environment management, along with the negative impacts left by regional conflicts, foreign occupation of parts of its land and despoiling of its resources. It is important to chart out the general framework of an Islamic agenda liable to help overcome these obstacles and lay down sturdy foundations for cooperation among Islamic countries to promote sustainable development with the view of submitting to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. Globalization, as has commonly been understood, concerns itself with business or and issues that transcend national borders. However, in this modern era, in which the world is envisaged as a single community (global village) linked with variety of telecommunications system, it is undisputable that such global issues have impact on the Muslim world. Finding or establishing a relationship between the concept of globalization and the processes of poverty eradication is, therefore, not hard to establish. The more so if we realize that rural people would also be affected positively or negatively, by the changes that take place at both national and international levels. The responses of the world community to the most recent natural disasters of tsunami, hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts and famines are indicative. The current issues pertaining to oil price hike and world food crisis will pose another major threat and challenge to the Islamic world, home to about 1.6 billion people. This issue would be even more critical as many of these countries are food-deficit, hence highly dependent for their food supply from the West. In his most recent

address to the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) in Kuwait (May 2008), Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi called on the Islamic countries to foster the idea that business partnership could become the bridge towards peace and prosperity between countries. Issues and concerns facing the Islamic world, from poverty, education and investment to economic partnership, especially between the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) and the Islamic world, will dominated the discussions during the four-day forum. It is conceded that problems engulfing Muslim nations have drawn a lot of caused concern of the majority among governments and international organizations. Most of the governments have included into their national socio-economic policies and programs for tackling problems such as, for example, education, hard-core poverty, access to land and access to justice etc. Law, policies and regulatory institutions has always played an important role on how things should be managed or carried out. The conference is meant to be interdisciplinary in nature. Certain participants are expected to touch upon general concepts of development. Others should refer to common themes and issues such as, land tenure, environment, institutional building, increase of productivity, access to health, law, education and resources. The approach should be holistic in which methodologies; concepts and policies etc. relating to globalization and rural development should be investigated by participants from different disciplines. Thus, this two-day Conference will provide a forum for initiating discussion on the alleviation of poverty and securing sustainable development in the Muslim world specifically and to design effective and sustainable strategies to combat and alleviate poverty. The main thrust of the papers to be discussed during the Conference should revolve around the following themes:

1.

Defining the concept of poverty and setting the threshold of poverty from Islamic Syariah perspectives. 2. Regulatory and institutional framework for establishing and development of distributive mechanisms prescribed by Syariah such as Zakat, Waqf, Trust and others. 3. Regulatory and institutional framework for regulating land tenure systems and development of land planning policies. 4. Regulatory and institutional framework for development of Islamic financial and commercial transactions system such as Islamic banking, sukuk, al-Rahn, real estate investment trusts etc. 5. Influence of Culture, Traditions and Customary practices on economic development, conflicts between official laws and customary practices and its effect in hampering or enhancing the economic development. 6. The role of Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) member countries in fostering strategic partnership amongst Muslim nations 7. Divorce and effect on incidences of poverty 8. Islamic Philanthropy and Poverty Eradication 9. Development of Natural Resources and poverty 10. Capacity building and development of human resources 11. Achieving food security and promoting technology for effective growth of agricultural and livestock sector 12. Creating of employment opportunities through establishment of small and medium sized enterprises 13. Facilitating access to microloans and preferential loans to fund local development projects and raise income of rural and urban poor 14. Poverty and Incidences of Crime 15. Poverty and Public Health 16. Empowerment of Women and Gender Equalities 17. Family Institutions