IDB Approves US$ 617 Million in Development Funding

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) recently approved US$ 617 million towards funding development projects including  important projects in the areas of education (US$ 174 million for Indonesia), electricity (US$ 319.6 million for Iran, Uganda and Bangladesh), agriculture (US$ 80 million for Morocco), sanitation (US$ 15 million in the Republic of the Maldives) and health (US$ 10 million for Mozambique).

The Board Members concurred to raise IDB’s participation in the capital of the Istanbul-based “Kuwait Turkish Participation Bank Inc.” by nearly US$ 18 million to stand at US$ 65 million. The approvals also included US$ 750,000 as grants under IDB’s Waqf (religious endowment) Fund for educational projects for four Muslim communities in non-member countries namely in Botswana, Nepal, Thailand and Fiji. The Board took note of technical assistance grants of US$ 450,000 approved by the President to Afghanistan for the education sector and to ASEAN (which includes three IDB member countries – Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia – in its membership) for the fishing sector.

Bearing in mind the success of IDB’s medium term note program and the rising financing needs in its member countries, the Board agreed to raise the size of IDB’s Sukuk program from US$ 6.5 billion to US$ 10 billion. (Sukuk is the Islamic finance equivalent of ‘bond’.)  It is worth mentioning that IDB’s cumulative Sukuk issuance since August 2003 is expected to reach US$ 7 billion by the end of the year.

IDB president Ahmed Al-Madani was announced an Editor’s Hero in the Winter 2012 issue of CFI.co: IDB Hero Al-Madani: Resources, Creativity and Credibility