Dr Azhari Ahmed (left) in conversation with a guest at the symposium. (SHAIVAL DALAL)

DOHA • Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has allocated a staggering $5bn for poverty alleviation all over the world, a senior bank official said here on Monday.

Dr Azhari Gasim Ahmed said the IDB does not differentiate between Islamic and non-Islamic countries and its funding for social uplift is for the needy all over the world.

Ahmed was taking part in a symposium on 'Global Development and Institutions Inspired by Faith' which discussed faith-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs), their role in carrying out charitable works and their relationship with secular NGOs worldwide.

The symposium was held by the Centre for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, the Berkley Centre for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and the Henry R Luce Foundation.

Dr Hani Al Banna (right) having a word with the Sri Lankan ambassador to Qatar, S B Atugoda, after the symposium.

The $5bn IDB fund, according to Ahmed, had been earmarked for its various human development, education and healthcare programmes in developing and underdeveloped societies as part a broader poverty eradication campaign.

Ahmed said nearly a third of support for the needy the world over came from faith-based charities belonging to the Christian, Muslim, Jewish and other religious communities.

And a vast 76 per cent of the beneficiaries of all charitable effort the world over are covered by faith-based NGOs, he pointed out.

Replying to a question from an audience member during the interactive session at the end of his lecture about why despite the Arab world being immensely wealthy, there was huge poverty, he said there indeed was a yawning gap between the rich and the poor.

According to him, the rich-poor divide was more pronounced in the Islamic world and it was widening due to globalization. Poverty is spreading in Muslim countries fuelled by inequality and lack of education.

Fighting corruption, inequality and global warming were the most formidable challenges the world faced in the New Millennium, Ahmed who is senior Economist at the IDB, said.

The other speaker at the symposium was Dr Hani Al Banna, from Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), a faith-based NGO from the UK.

He said the biggest challenge Islamic NGOs in Europe faced was to mobilize funds due to suspicions that the money could be routed to finance terrorists.

With the passage of time and commitment to transparency, however, the NGOs have been able to succeed with the result that the corpus collected by IRW alone has almost trebled.

Talking of HIV-Aids, he said Arab and Islamic societies could no more afford to close their eyes to the killer disease which has been spreading fast.

Responding to a query later about the Arab world being rich, some of them spent more on organizing conferences and funding terrorists, Al Banna said some NGOs could be bad but it won't be wise to generalize.

He said the question should instead be put to the local regulatory authorities for charitable works for a detailed answer.

The questioner further said many religious groups in the Arab world were spreading hatred among the youth and the US and European Union countries remained mute spectators.