D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation

D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation

Members of D-8
Formation	1996 1997 (Summit)
Headquarters	Istanbul, Turkey
Membership	8 Bangladesh Egypt Indonesia Iran Malaysia Nigeria Pakistan Turkey
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, Nigeria, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, 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 organisations.

The combined population of the eight countries is about 1 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 account for 3.3 percent of world trade. The figure is projected to reach 10–15 percent in the next few years.

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 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 organisations.

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.
• Emphasise the importance of D-8 in contributing to the economic development of its member countries and ensure that it promotes global trade.

Structure

The Developing 8 is organised into three bodies:

• The Summit
• The Council
• The Commission

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 D-8, and is composed of the foreign affairs ministers of each member state.

The Commission has executive authority, and is composed of Commissioners appointed by each member state's government. Commissioners are responsible for promoting compliance with D8 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	Goodluck Jonathan	Abuja
8	November 2012	Pakistan	Asif Ali Zardari	Islamabad
9	October 2017	Turkey	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan	Istanbul

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	present

5 ِDato Ku Jaafar Ku shaari, 2018, Malaysia

See also

• Newly industrialised country
• Next Eleven
• D-8 Member States Statistics
• D-8 Publications
• Preferential Trade Agreement
• Agriculture and Food Security

External links

• Official website