The Regional Workshop on DevInfo took place in Beirut from 7 to 10 July 2008. The workshop has been organized by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in partnership with the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), UN country offices, and the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC).

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The Experts Group Meeting (EGM) on Enhancing Intra-OIC Trade was jointly organised by the Centre, the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC) of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchange (TOBB) of the Republic of Turkey and the COMCEC Coordination Office and held at the campus of the Economy and Technology University (ETU) of the TOBB in Ankara on 5-6 July 2008.

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The Sixth Session of the Islamic Conference of Tourism Ministers (ICTM) was held in Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic, on 29 June - 2 July 2008. It was preceded by a two-day Meeting of the Senior Officials on 29-30 June. Representatives from 32 member countries, the World Tourism Organisation (WTO), the Arab Tourism Organisation, Iran cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organisation, the General Secretariat of the OIC and its subsidiary, specialised and affiliated institutions attended the Conference. Dr. Savas Alpay, Director General, and Mr. Nabil Dabour, Acting Director of Research Department, represented the Centre thereat.

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The Centre organised a training course on “Agriculture Statistics” at the Kazakhstan Statistical Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on June 24-26, 2008. The course was provided by an expert from the Turkish Statistical Institute in Turkey and was attended by 20 staff members of the Kazakhstan Statistical Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

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35th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) was held on 18-20 June 2008 in Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

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The Review Meeting of the Trade Negotiating Committee was held in Ankara from the 17th to the 19th of June 2008 with the participation of delegates from 16 countries of the Trade Negotiating Committee (TNC), 7 OIC member countries attended the meeting as observers. SESRIC represented the OIC General Secretariat and representatives of COMCEC Coordination Office, ICDT, IDB, SESRIC and WAEMU also attended the meeting.

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The Tourism Statistics Workshop was held on 16-18 June 2008 in Ankara, Turkey at Gazi Park Hotel. It was jointly organized by SESRIC, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, Turkish Statistical Institute and World Tourism Organization. 36 participants from ten OIC countries, namely Azerbaijan, Brunei, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey attended the workshop.

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11th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis was held at Marina Congress Center, Helsinki, Finland, with the theme “Future of Global Economy”. The goal of the conference was to promote the exchange of ideas among economists conducting quantitative analysis of global economic issues.

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One of the world’s best known series of conferences on development, the ABCDE conference took place at the International Convention Center in Cape Town (South Africa) on 9-11 June 2008. It was jointly organized by the World Bank and the National Treasury of South Africa.

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The Centre organised a training course on “Agriculture Statistics and Food Safety Analysis” at the Uganda Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Uganda on May 26-27, 2008. The course was provided by an expert from the Turkish Statistical Institute in Turkey and was attended by 15 staff members of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Uganda.

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The Centre organised a training course on “Quality in Statistics” at the State Committee on Statistics of the Republic of Tajikistan on May 26-28, 2008. The course was provided by an expert from the Turkish Statistical Institute in Turkey and was attended by 20 staff members of the State Committee on Statistics of the Republic of Tajikistan.

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The 24th Meeting of the Follow-up Committee of the COMCEC was held on 14-15 May 2008 in Antalya, Turkey with the participation of 10 member countries of the Committee. Iraq, Uganda, United Arab Emirates and Yemen also attended the Meeting as observers. Malaysia attended the Meeting as the Chairman of the 10th Islamic Summit. The OIC General Secretariat and the following subsidiary, affiliated and specialised organs (SESRIC, ICDT, IDB, ICCI, IUT, ITFC, OISA and ICYF-DC) attended the Meeting. The Centre was represented at the meeting by its Director General Dr. Savaş Alpay and Mr. Nabil Dabour, Senior Researcher/Acting Director of the Research Department.

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The First Meeting of the Steering Committee for the implementation of the OIC Cotton Cooperation Programme was held on 12 May 2008 in Antalya, Republic of Turkey, prior to the 24th Meeting of the Follow-up Committee of the COMCEC (13-15 May 2008).

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Considering the importance of e-tourism technologies and the status of the OIC member countries in this regard, a proposal for organising an International Seminar on “Development of E-Tourism Technologies in Islamic Countries” was discussed in the 5th Islamic Conference of Tourism Ministers (ICTM) held in Baku, Republic of Azerbaijan in September 2006. In this connection, the said Seminar was organised by the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology of Islamic University of Technology (IUT), Dhaka, in collaboration with Islamic Development Bank (IDB), OIC General Secretariat, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Republic of Azerbaijan and the Ministry of Civil Aviation & Tourism of Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh, and held at the campus of the Islamic University of Technology (IUT), Dhaka, Bangladesh on 22-24 April 2008.

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The 9th Meeting of the OIC Standardisation Experts Group, which was entrusted by the 23rd Session of the COMCEC with the task of studying and developing the OIC Halal Food Standards, was held in Ankara, Republic of Turkey on 16-18 April 2008 at the Headquarters of the Turkish Standards Institution (TSI).

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The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) organised the First Meeting of the Statistical Working Group (SWG-1) at the OIC level on March 25- 26, 2008 at its Headquarters in Jeddah. The SWG has been initiated in accordance with the recommendation of the Expert Group Meeting on Statistical Capacity Building organised by IDB on April 29, 2007 which called on IDB to “establish a working group, in collaboration with the relevant OIC Institutions, to meet regularly in order to harmonise statistical activities, exchange experiences and best practices, develop common methodologies for collecting and processing data from Member Countries”. Similar proposal in the form of a project for establishing SWG was made by the Director General of SESRIC, Dr. Savas Alpay, during his visit to the IDB on December 3, 2007.

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The Arab Planning Institute, Kuwait (API) organised the International Conference on “The Unemployment Crisis in the Arab World”, which was held in Cairo, Egypt on March 17- 18, 2008. The major objectives of this conference were to analyse the nature of persisting, high and increasing unemployment rates in the Arab countries, to evaluate the policies pursuing these issues, as well as to search for future applicable policy options.

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The agenda for the 11th Session of the Islamic Summit Conference held in Dakar, Senegal on March 13-14, 2008 focused on four items:

• Implementation of the OIC Ten-Year Program of Action
• Adoption of the revised OIC Charter
• Two brainstorming sessions on economic cooperation among Member States especially African
• Knowledge-sharing among Member States.

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The 39th Session of the UN Statistical Commission was held at the United Nations Headquarters, New York, on February 26-29, 2008. The Commission elected South Africa as the Chair of the Statistical Commission and Finland, Colombia, Oman and Hungary as the members of the Bureau. During the working Sessions, the Commission discussed the reports prepared by the designated institutions on employment statistics, education statistics, national accounts, tourism statistics, industrial statistics, trade statistics, health statistics, informal sector statistics and environment statistics.

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The 11th Meeting of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA) was held in New York, at the United Nations Headquarters, on February 25, 2008. The Director of the United Nations Statistics Division and Co-chair of the committee, Mr. Paul Cheung, welcomed the participants. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Pieter Everaers, Director of Agriculture and Environment Statistics, Statistical Cooperation of Eurostat and also Co-chair of the Committee.

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The 3rd Core Group Meeting on OIC University Ranking was held on February 21-22, 2008 in Tehran, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mr. H. Hakan Eryetli and Mr. Esat Bakımlı represented the Centre thereat.

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The Centre organised a training course on “Census and Survey Processing System (CSPRO) & Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)” at the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Sudan on February 4-6, 2008. The course was provided by an expert from the Department of Statistics in Jordan and was attended by 12 staff members of the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Sudan.

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The 1st Meeting of the Heads of National Statistical Offices of ECO Member Countries was held on January 28-29, 2008, in Tehran, the Islamic Republic of Iran and was attended by the ECO Deputy Secretary-General, Heads of National Statistical Offices of the ECO member countries, the representatives of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC), the Deputies, Director Generals and Senior Experts of the Statistical Centre of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Dr. Sıdıka Başcı represented SESRIC thereat.

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Launched in 1999, the GDN is a global network of research and policy institute dedicated to building high-quality social science research capacity across the developing and transition world. GDN aims to generate policy relevant, local research and build the capacity of research institutes and individual researchers in the developing and transition world. The 9th Annual Global Development Network (GDN) Conference on the theme 'Security for Development: Confronting Threats to Survival and Safety' was held in Brisbane, Australia, on January 27, 2008.

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