KUALA LUMPUR: After coming into being slightly more than a decade ago, the Group of Eight Islamic Developing Countries, better known as D-8, needs to critically look at its achievements so far for it to move forward, said Malaysian Commissioner for D-8 Ibrahim Abdullah.

"We can no longer refrain from addressing this issue if we really want to make an impact on our economies through our efforts. We must find new ways of doing things. Let us seriously ponder and crack our minds.

"We need to be different from other organisations, in which we are members, in the way we organise events and programmes so as not to duplicate.

"All of us are under tremendous constraints, financially and in human resources. We have to optimise the mobilisation of our limited resources. This is the challenge facing our grouping that needs to be urgently addressed," he said at the opening of the 25th Session of D-8 Commissioners.

Earlier, Ibrahim received the D-8 chairmanship at the senior officials level from the Indonesian D-8 Commissioner Rezlan I. Jenie.
The D-8, established in 1997, comprises eight Islamic developing countries which are also members of the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), namely Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.

It is a forum for enhancing cooperation in areas such as trade, investment, rural development, human resource development, science and technology, energy, agriculture and health to improve the economic status of member states.

Calling for the D-8 to embark on new and innovative approaches to further strengthen economic links among member states, Ibrahim said there was also a need to revisit the grouping's programmes and activities.

"Through this we can see how we can value add to the programmes by translating them into mutually beneficial projects that can be taken on by the private sector. Let us have more private sector collaborations through joint ventures or equity participation."

In these challenging times, he said, focus should also be placed on developing human capital in soft skills which would result in people working smart, rather than working hard and wasting resources.

He said the issue of funding the grouping was also equally important to ensure its effective running and continued relevance. -- Bernama