The Fifth Meeting of the Poverty Alleviation Working Group organized by the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC) was held on 26 February 2015 in Ankara, Turkey.

The delegates from 16 OIC Member Countries including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Benin, Cameroon, Egypt, Gambia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey and Uganda attended the meeting. The representatives of international organisations including SESRIC, IDB, OECD, and World Bank also took part in the 5th COMCEC Poverty Working Group Meeting.

The representatives of international organisations including the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and World Bank also took part in the 5th COMCEC Poverty Working Group Meeting where SESRIC was represented by Mrs. Zehra Zumrut Selcuk, Senior Researcher at Statistics and Information Department and Mr. Mansur Boydas, Researcher at Training and Technical Cooperation Department.

After the brief summary of COMCEC regarding the current situation of poverty in the OIC member countries, the delegates were informed about the global trends in the activation policies and programmes under the meeting theme of the “Activation Policies for the Poor in the OIC Member States”. International organizations and local authorities in the member countries also shared their experiences, best practices, challenges and policy implementations in increasing the efficiency of the activation programmes and policies in OIC Member Countries. The meeting also has come up with two policy recommendations to be submitted for adoption in the next COMCEC Economic Summit; increasing the capacity of the institutions providing Public Employment Services (PES) in the Member Countries through enhancing the quality and quantity of the human resources and developing information technology (IT) infrastructure of the PES institutions as well as ensuring an effective partnership with the relevant stakeholders in delivering activation measures and promoting employer engagement in the preparation/implementation of the activation programmes through establishing a sound mechanism for ensuring the active involvement of the relevant stakeholders, and conducting employer surveys to identify the skill-needs in the labour market.

Mr. Mansur Boydaş, Researcher at SESRIC, made a presentation on “Activation Policies under OIC-VET” addressing Vocational Education and Training Programme for the Member Countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC-VET) and the activities in line with activation policies. He further briefed the meeting on SESRIC activities targeting capacity building and job creation as an instrument to increase the employability of individuals in labor market of the OIC Member Countries through various channels such as OIC-VET Programme.

Documents

• Programme of the 5^th Meeting of COMCEC Poverty Working Group (English)
• Activation Policies for the Poor in the OIC Member States (English)
• Participant List of the 5^th Meeting of COMCEC Poverty Working Group (English)
• Presentation (English)

Photos