D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation

D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation

Members of D-8
Formation	1996 1997 (1 Summit)
Legal status	Intergovernmental Organization
Headquarters	Istanbul, Turkey
Membership	8 Bangladesh Egypt Indonesia Iran Malaysia Nigeria Pakistan Turkey
Secretary-General	Ambassador Isiaka Abdulqadir Imam
Website	www.developing8.org

The D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation, also known as Developing-8, is an organisation for development co-operation among the following countries: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey. The objectives of D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation are to improve member states' position in the global economy, diversify and create new opportunities in trade relations, enhance participation in decision-making at international level, and improve standards of living. D-8 is a global arrangement rather than a regional one, as the composition of its members reflects. Organization for Economic Cooperation (D-8) is a forum with no adverse impact on bilateral and multilateral commitments of the member countries, emanating from their membership to other international or regional organizations.

The combined population of the eight countries is about 1.2 billion or 60% of all Muslims, or close to 13% of the world's population and covering an area of 7.6 million square kilometers, 5% of world land area. In 2006, trade between the D-8 member states stood at $35 billion, and it was around $68 billion in 2010. Transactions between the 8 developing countries accounted for 3.3 percent of world trade in 2010. The total nominal GDP of the eight nations was around 4.92 trillion as of 2023.

History

The idea of co-operation among major Muslim developing countries was mooted by Prof. Dr. Necmettin Erbakan, the then Prime Minister of Turkey, during a Seminar on "Cooperation in Development" which was held in Istanbul in October 1996.

The group envisioned co-operation among countries stretching from South East Asia to Africa. Representatives from Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria and Pakistan attended the Seminar. This conference was the first step towards the establishment of D-8 and it was only after a series of preparatory meetings that D-8 was set up officially and began its activities with the Istanbul Declaration issued at the end of the summit of Heads of State and Government held in Istanbul on 15 June 1997

Purposes and objectives

As stated by the D-8 Facts and Figures Publication: "The objectives of D-8 are to improve developing countries' positions in the world economy, diversify and create new opportunities in trade relations, enhance participation in decision-making at the international level, and provide better standards of living." The main areas of co-operation include finance, banking, rural development, science and technology, humanitarian development, agriculture, energy, environment, and health.

In the first Summit Declaration (Istanbul, 1997), the main objective of D-8 is stated to be socio-economic development in accordance with the following principles:

• Peace instead of conflict.
• Dialogue instead of confrontation.
• Cooperation instead of exploitation.
• Justice instead of double standard.
• Equality instead of discrimination.
• Democracy instead of oppression.

By the same token, D-8 is a forum with no adverse impact on bilateral and multilateral commitments of the member countries, emanating from their membership of other regional or international organizations.

The fifth D-8 Summit Declaration (Bali, 2006) produced the following, as illustration of the application of the group's objectives:

• Commitment to work together to solve the problem of economic disparities within our countries.
• Reaffirm commitment to enhance co-operation in the field of energy to develop alternative and renewable energy resources.
• Emphasize the importance of D-8 in contributing to the economic development of its member countries and ensure that it promotes global trade.

Structure

The Summit, which is convened every two years, has the highest level of authority, and is composed of the leaders of each member state.

The Council is the principal decision-making body and forum for consideration of issues relating to the and is composed of the foreign affairs ministers of each member state.

The Commission has executive authority, and is composed of Commissioners appointed by beach member state's government. Commissioners are responsible for promoting compliance with directives in their respective nation. Finally, an executive director is appointed by D-8 members to facilitate communication and to act in a supervisory capacity during each summit or lower-level assembly.

D-8 Summits

	Date	Host country	Host leader	Location held
1	June 1997	Turkey	Necmettin Erbakan	Istanbul
2	March 1999	Bangladesh	Sheikh Hasina	Dhaka
3	February 2001	Egypt	Hosni Mubarak	Cairo
4	February 2004	Iran	Mohammad Khatami	Tehran
5	May 2006	Indonesia	Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono	Bali
6	July 2008	Malaysia	Abdullah Ahmad Badawi	Kuala Lumpur
7	July 2010	Nigeria	Muhammadu Buhari	Abuja
8	November 2012	Pakistan	Asif Ali Zardari	Islamabad
9	October 2017	Turkey	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan	Istanbul
10	April 2021	Bangladesh	Sheikh Hasina	Virtual

Member countries

Country	Population (1July 2023)	Nominal GDP (USD million)	Nominal GDP per capita ($)	PPP GDP (Int$ million)	PPP GDP per capita (Int$)	Life expectancy (years, avg. 2021)	HDI (2021)
Bangladesh	172,954,319	509,516	2,969	1,578,164	9,063	74.3	0.661 (medium)
Egypt	112,716,599	378,110	3,644	1,803,584	16,979	71.8	0.731 (high)
Indonesia	277,534,123	1,391,778	5,016	4,398,729	15,855	71.3	0.705 (high)
Iran	89,172,767	367,970	4,251	1,691,819	19,548	77.3	0.774 (high)
Malaysia	34,308,525	447,026	13,382	1,230,823	36,847	74.7	0.803 (very high)
Nigeria	223,804,632	506,601	2,280	1,372,624	6,178	62.6	0.535 (low)
Pakistan	240,485,658	376,493 (2022)	1,658 (2022)	1,582,988	6,836	68	0.544 (medium)
Turkey	85,816,199	1,029,303	11,931	3,572,551	41,412	78.6	0.838 (very high)
Combined/Average	1,236,792,822	4,917,797	3,976	17,128,282	13,849	72.0	N/A

Secretaries-General of D-8

No.	Name	Country of origin	Took office	Left office
1	Ayhan Kamel	Turkey	1997	2006
2	Dipo Alam	Indonesia	2006	2010
3	Widi Agoes Pratikto	Indonesia	2010	2012
4	Seyed Ali Mohammad Mousavi	Iran	2013	2017
5	Ambassador Dato' Ku Jaafar Ku Shaari	Malaysia	2018	2021
6	Ambassador Isiaka Abdulqadir Imam	Nigeria	2022	present

See also

• Newly industrialized country
• Next Eleven

External links

• Official website

• D-8 Member States Statistics
• D-8 Publications
• Preferential Trade Agreement
• Agriculture and Food Security