By Kebba Touray
In tabling a motion before Deputies at the National Assembly (NA), the Foreign Affairs Minister Ousainou Darboe, said the Muslim Umah still experiences an exponential transformation in its development and that the advances that have been recorded in the socio-political and ecomomic spheres, have robustly intensified, thereby creating the urgent need for increasing the OIC Summit Sessions.
“The sessions of the Islamic Summit must conform with the ever changing global landscape and thus forging the need to increase the frequency of which the sessions are held”, Darboe said; that the article state that the Islamic summit shall be convened every three years in one of the member states; but that upon ratification by two thirds of the member states, the Islamic Summit shall be convened every two years in one of the member States.
“The dynamism in global trends with respect to International Trade, International Diplomacy and the rapid innovation emerging in advance technology, demands a high responsive organization which in turn requires a much higher frequency of meetings”, he added.
He disclosed that meeting every two years will minimize the noise which serves to distort communication and seek to bridge the economic gap between the Islamic block and the rest of the world; that the OIC has played a significant role in The Gambia’s development agenda which is evidently manifested in the various OIC sponsored projects.
“The Gambia’s voice in the OIC platform is highly placed and this is conspicuously demonstrated in the nomination of The Gambia to host the General Assembly Meeting of the OIC in 2019”, he concludes.
This motion was subsequently debated and amended the Legislative House.
