ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman, Prof (Dr) Attaur Rehman, has said a proposal to establish a ‘central fund’ for human resource development for Islamic countries would be tabled before the OIC Summit.

In an interview to a private television channel, he said, the proposal was floated in the last Comstech General Assembly which urged every member country to allocate 0.1 per cent of its GDP for the fund.

He said the establishment of the central fund was imperative to initiate human resource development and specially science and technology programmes to establish centres of excellence for Muslims.

Dr Rehman said Muslims should make progress in the field of science and technology for better utilization of their resources and to make them self-reliant and strong in economic and defence fields. The Muslims are more than 20 per cent of the world population with about 70 per cent natural resources but there is dire need to utilize these resources properly, he added.

He regretted that the Muslim world which has total population of 1.3 billion is spending huge resources on defence while very meagre amount on research and development activities. The total GDP of all OIC-member countries is $1,200 billion, while countries like Germany and Japan have a GDP of $2,500 billion and $5,000 billion, respectively, he added.

Dr Rehman said among the Muslim world, Turkey had the highest GDP of $185 billion while a small European country like Austria with a population of 8.1 million GDP of $208 billion.

He expressed his concern that Muslim leadership continue to rely on natural resources in an age which is driven by knowledge. Knowledge is the critical factor to eradicate poverty and raise GDP growth, he added.—APP