This week the largest ever meeting of Islamic nations concerning science and technology will take place in Kazakhstan (Sept 10-11). The summit will convene over 50 Government Ministers and Heads of State to discuss implementation of national policies that address food, water, climate change and health challenges by using science and technology. Confirmed attendees include the President of Pakistan, Mamoon Hussain and President of Bangladesh, Abdul Hamid. Other countries represented by senior Government Ministers include Malaysia, Nigeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Libya. The summit is organized by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the world’s second largest intergovernmental body after the UN
The end-goal of the summit is to build new “knowledge-economies” of the future by having Muslim majority nations - all 57 of which will be represented at the summit, commit to increasing investment in science and technology to tackle development challenges – particularly around food and water security.
Challenges the OIC Science and Technology Summit is designed to address:
- Climate change and the consequent desertification, drought and degradation of land and water;
- The dangers of rising young populations across Muslim nations with dwindling employment opportunities;
- Increasing scientific achievement and output in the Islamic world so that the Muslim world can better compete with West in scientific innovation.
National policy proposals:
The OIC Science and Technology Summit is designed to facilitate agreement amongst the OIC’s 57-member states on national policies pertaining to investment in science and technology. Final policy proposals have been informed by the contributions of one hundred and twenty scientists from across the Islamic world and are as follows:
- a. Pre-empting food shortages
- Set up National Gene Banks for conservation and exchange of PGR (plant genetic resources) with research centres in member states.
- Reduce post-harvest losses through sharing and adoption of modern techniques
- Protecting against water shortages:
- Prepare national water budgets at the ‘local’ levels, supplemented by monitoring of sub-aquifers, glaciers, and loss in canals.
- Increase efficiency in water use and combat desertification by encouraging drought and salt tolerant seeds and practices, drip irrigation, and laser land levelling
- Aim for maximum recycling of urban waste water. Phytoremediation provides an important tool for chronic industrial and toxic waste pollution
- c. Tackling Climate Change:
- Set up OIC Advisory Group on climate change with experts drawn from the OIC’s 57-member states. A first step for the group would be to prepare “a detailed plan of action including mitigation options”.
- Prepare “national policies for effective planning and management for the protection and restoration of ecosystems, including the marine environment.”
- Establish “stations which monitor and collect detailed local data over time for integration into system models, instead of remote foreign studies.”
- “Prepare a template of ‘green technologies’ which encompass the human habitat”
- d. Energy:
- “Reduce greenhouse gases by targeting a renewable energy share of at least 10% in national energy mix of OIC States by 2025”
- “Move towards high efficiency electricity generation systems (48%-60%) based upon super critical and ultra-super critical coal based plants (using high pressure / high temperature boilers), coupled with clean coal technologies”.
- “Promote passive houses, efficient cooling and heating systems, and energy efficient appliances which are certifiable internationally”
- Promote research to design “large scale storage technologies, such as covering peak demands and improved power quality and frequency regulation”
- “Enhance national research for increasing solar cell efficiencies to reach commercially deployable conversion factors of 40%”
- “Design and develop energy storage systems such as fuel cells (5 MW for 2 hours) and batteries (such as Lithium Ion and Vanadium Redox) for small storage applications”
Other areas of scientific development policy proposals will focus on include:
- Space exploration and astronomy:
- Establish a Center for Space Technologies. This may lead to an Inter-Islamic Space Agency, focusing on projects from space launch systems to manned vehicles;
- “Design and launch small satellites singly or jointly, for elegant experiments in low orbit”;
- “Jointly design and launch remote sensing satellites for observation, crop estimation and disaster management, rescue at sea, and weather prediction”.
- Health:
- Raise health financing to a minimum of 10% of national budgets of all 57 OIC member states by 2025 and allocate nearly half to cover essential healthcare and financial risks.
- Big Data:
- Connect all 57 OIC member states through a secure, high-speed intra-OIC network.
- Ensure faster transition to e-government for faster and more transparent decision making”
- Education and Research:
- increase allocation for all tiers of education to a minimum of 8% of annual national budgets;
- increase the share of member states in global scientific output (publications and patents) by 100% in the next ten years.
The OIC Assistant Secretary General for Science and Technology (and former Ambassador of Pakistan to Saudi Arabia), Ambassador Naeem Khan, said “According to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, water scarcity will increase in the 21st century. Water scarcity will be made worse by climate change – particularly in the Islamic-world where desertification, drought and degradation of land and water is already a major problem.”
“Just last month the Journal Science Advances found that countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh could become uninhabitable by 2100. According to Germany's Max Planck, a similarly bleak result could be achieved in the Middle East by just 2050.”
“In addition, several studies have shown a link between climate change, the subsequent effect on drought and food prices and the outbreak of conflict.”
“That is why the Islamic world’s first collective science and technology summit has placed food and water security as a major priority.”
“It is also why the OIC calls for deeper collaboration between the Muslim world nations to tackle climate change. To this end, we will be discussing proposals for an OIC Advisory Group on climate change with experts drawn from the OIC’s 57 Muslim majority member states. It is also imperative that the collective efforts of the Muslim world are harnessed to ensure the food shortages do not endanger millions of lives. This is why the OIC has proposed creating National Gene Banks with research centres in member states.”
The OIC Secretary General, HE Dr. Yousef A. Al-Othaimeen, said “Islam lays special importance on seeking knowledge. The Quran’s first injunction was to ‘Read’. References are frequently made in the Quran to those who reflect and contemplate. And over a thousand years ago, algebra, astronomy, geography, medicine and industrial chemistry were all pioneered across the Islamic world for nearly half a millennium.
“That is precisely why part of the inspiration behind the OIC’s first ever Science and Technology summit was Islam’s own ‘golden age’ of science.”
“Rather than seeing science as an alien doctrine that threatens Islamic traditions, the Islamic world must re-orient its perspective by reclaiming science as its own. The task at our upcoming summit will be to capture this spirit, and reinject it into the Muslim world.”
For further information please contact Shiraz Ahmad on shiraz@unitascommunications.com.
