The Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) mobilizes considerable and extensive efforts to contribute to addressing the fallout of Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.  Since the onset of the outbreak worldwide, ICESCO has launched several practical yet effective initiatives within the realm of its competence. To top these continued efforts, ICESCO has formed a global coalition to fight coronavirus pandemic and stem its present and future adverse effects on the Islamic world.

The significance of this coalition has been hailed by prominent international organizations and institutions, reaffirming their willingness to join the coalition and take part in supporting its noble goals financially or in kind.  It envisions to aid poor countries to address the outbreak of the virus, and stamp out its negative impact and overcome the current crisis.

The coalition covers and supplements field projects, executive programmes, foresight strategies for the Islamic world, and fund-raising campaigns to enable the Islamic world to face the challenges during and in the aftermath of the pandemic.

In this vein, ICESCO calls on Member States, their civil society institutions, regional and international organizations, development institutions and companies, donors, and banks to join the coalition to contribute to the achievement of its objectives and support a coalition that embodies solidarity and global unity in face of this severe crisis.

The initiative is part of a series of efforts and initiatives launched by the Organization to help its Member States to overcome the repercussions of coronavirus pandemic and stop the outbreak. These included US$200.000 ICESCO Prize Award for supporting scientific research to anyone who will discover an effective treatment or vaccine against Coronavirus (COVID-19), an initiative that was widely welcomed and lauded by the international community.

Subsequently, ICESCO launched “ICESCO Digital Home” with technological, educational and socio-cultural elements providing educational digital content, platforms for socio-cultural dialogue and family awareness-raising contents for all age groups. Moreover, ICESCO provided educational sectors in several Member States with technological devices and equipment to ensure the continuity of education during lockdowns, through the production of digital content on the internet.

For learners of non-speakers of the Arabic language, ICESCO launched an initiative to allow them the opportunity to remotely learn Arabic through video lessons, audiobooks, and interactive content. At the cultural level, the Organization, through its “Distance Culture” initiative, has developed programmes for developing talents and unleashing the potentials and artistic and creative capacities of the Islamic world’s youth and students. To this effect, ICESCO earmarked prizes to encourage creativity in the various creative fields.

Likewise, ICESCO supported the establishment of units for the production of low-cost sanitizers and their distribution to citizens in many Member States and the training of local communities’ groups to sustain this work. The prototype production has been recently started in the Republic of Mali.

These initiatives and programmes demonstrate that ICESCO is among the leading international organizations in addressing, under its fields of competence, the deleterious consequences of Coronavirus pandemic. ICESCO has been reaffirming that it will continue to monitor closely the effects of the outbreak of the Covid-19 on the educational, scientific and cultural levels in Member States.  Accordingly, the Organization will provide them with the most effective means to bolster efforts as the situation evolves. The new coalition will be the epitome of such undertakings.