The Partnerships and International Cooperation Sector acts as a channel linking ICESCO with the international environment, in order to serve the fulfilment of the Organization’s lofty objectives and mission, based on a participatory and cooperative approach open to all partners in humanity, and in line with ICESCO’s strategic orientations as an interactive organization actively engaged at the regional and international levels.

The Sector aims to attract, build and sustain strategic partnerships, in a way that contributes to building alliances, strengthening the organization’s network of relations, and ensuring the presence of its name regionally and internationally. It works to mobilize additional resources to support the programmatic activities of other Sectors, Centres and Departments of the Organization. The Sector also contributes to the presentation and marketing of the organization to the outside world and promotes a positive image of the Islamic world.

The sector supervises and manage the process of signing cooperation agreements and protocols with external partners, in coordination with the Department of Legal Affairs and International Standards and the concerned technical Sector. In this sense, the Partnerships and International Cooperation Sector follows up the maturity cycle of draft agreements, starting with communicating with external partners, negotiating the content of cooperation, and ending with the stage of signature and validation. The Sector also continuously monitors, analyzes and evaluates the output of agreements to ensure optimum partnerships outcome. It further presents recommendations to the General Directorate regarding the priorities, feasibility and the diplomatic dimensions of external potential agreements.

The Partnerships and International Cooperation Sector is also active in urging non-Member States outside the Islamic World to join the Organization as Observers within the framework of its new open-door strategy, through communication with Diplomatic Missions and corps.

Aware of the complexity of the current global issues and the borderless social, humanitarian and environmental challenges such as migration, climate change and pandemics, the Sector strives to orient the efforts of the Organization’s partnerships to be in line with the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 17 on Partnerships, and the OIC-2025 Programme of Action, the African Union Agenda 2063 and the ALECSO Action Plan 2023-2028 as well as with other strategic partners. The Sector also endeavors to present ICESCO as a prestigious expertise hub, which shares knowledge, skills and best practices to serve the objectives of its partnerships, and launches initiatives likely to contribute to building the capacities of its staff in project design and management.