Muslim world needs to confront energy, food, water crises; Musharraf

ASSOCIATED PRESS SERVICE

ISLAMABAD : President Pervez Musharraf Tuesday urged the Muslim world to optimise its potential and to collectively focus energies to avert the looming crises in energy, water and food sectors.Inaugurating the 13th General Assembly meeting of OIC Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH) President Musharraf said the Muslim world faces the threat of being marginalised.
He said only through collective efforts the Ummah can confront the formidable challenges facing it.
“We have to show collective resolve to take the Muslim Ummah forward and realise the true potential of the collective powers of Ummah by sharing and cooperating with each other,” President Musharraf told delegates from the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference.
The President asked the delegates to study all possible means of strengthening cooperation among Members States and to draw up programs and submit proposals designed to increase the capability of the Muslim countries in the fields of science and technology.
“Comstech must specially focus on appropriate technologies to ensure energy, water and food security,” the President said.
The President urged the member states to be wary of the threat of being marginalised and pointed that despite being rich in natural resources and raw materials, the Muslim countries were still unable to fully exploit these.
He also urged initiation of a dialogue with the United Nations and other forums to address the existing gap while also removing the misperceptions in the West about the Muslim world.
President Musharraf also welcomed the decision by the OIC summit at Dakar to restrict membership of the organisation to only those countries with a Muslim majority.
Otherwise, he warned, these countries faced the risk of being marginalised and dominated by world actors.
He said Pakistan was proud to have played its role as it believed in the betterment and development of the Muslim world.
“We believe that the new relationship between the Muslim world and the West has to be built on a dialogue and understanding which could effectively deal with the threat to world peace,” he said.
“However we have to impress upon the West that extremism cannot be eliminated when economic inequalities continue to threaten national regional and global peace.”
The President said the best way to counter extremism was to “reduce socio-economic disparities around the world.”
President Musharraf said the Muslim world, despite being a pioneer in different sciences and innovation was lagging far behind and has slid down considerably in the graph as compared to the West.
The President said Pakistan was today the largest single contributor and has so far provided US one million dollars to Comstech, collected another US five million dollars from member states besides spending US 8 million dollars for Comstech.
He again urged the Muslim world for contributions to strengthen in areas of science and technology.
He said still 39 per cent of population lived below the poverty level, and despite being 19 per cent of the world population its contribution towards world income was only 8 per cent. He said of the 50 least developed countries 22 belonged to the Muslim world.
The Muslim countries had 70 per cent of energy resources, and 40 per cent natural resources yet its trade share was only 7-8 per cent globally. Even the trade within the Muslim world was less than 13 per cent.
The President also conferred the Comstech’s award to Professor Ibrahim al Tayyab of Sudan in Mathematics and Professor Mohammad Mehdi Sheikh Jabari of Iran in Physics.