ISLAMABAD, Dec 26: The 11th General Assembly of OIC Standing Committee for Scientific and Technological Cooperation (Comstech) has approved a total budget of $11.61 million for the next two years.

Of the total budget, the member states will pay $8.70 million, while $2.85 million would come from external funding sources.

This was stated by Comstech assistant coordinator general Mohammad Ali Mahaisir at a press conference here on Friday.

He said member states had promised to give $1.3 million in the 10th General Assembly meeting of Comstech. However, the situation has improved in the present general assembly, he added.

Mr Mahaisir said about 235 delegates from 39 countries were participating in the meeting. He said representatives of five countries — Bangladesh, Kazakhastan, Senegal, Turkey and Yemen — had been elected as vice chairmen.

As many as 23 countries submitted their reports about improvement in science and technology during the last two years, he said.

Earlier, speaking at the 11th General Assembly of Comstech at the Convention Centre, Minister In Charge for Science and Technology Dr Attaur Rehman urged the OIC states to quit total reliance on borrowed technologies for prompt development and progress.

The OIC countries must invest in scientific and technological research and in key frontier technologies, and make them an integral part of their national development plans, he said.

Dr Rehman, who is also coordinator general of Comstech, said true progress could only be achieved by benefiting from creative minds. He said knowledge had become the main driving force of world economies and the basis of socio-economic development of individual countries.

The recent advances in information technology, genetics, biotechnology and other emerging disciplines hold immense prospects for the wellbeing of mankind as a whole.

However, most OIC member states continue with their short- sighted policy of low investment in education and scientific research, he said.

Dr Rehman said despite lagging behind the West in every field of life, the OIC member countries were spending only 0.1 to 0.2 per cent of their small GDPs on scientific research. On the other hand, they were spending as much as seven per cent of their GDPs on defence and contributed less than one per cent to the world’s scientific literature.

In contrast, 95 per cent of the new scientific development in the world is being made by the developed countries which comprise only one fifth of the world’s population, but thereby own most of the global wealth, he said.

The minister said ill planning by OIC member countries had resulted in a number of problems such as low literacy rate, slow economic growth, increasing dependence on the West and transfer of resources to the advanced world.

He said despite spending up to seven per cent of their GDP on their defence, most OIC countries still remained dependent on the West in this regard.

It is an unfortunate that the Muslim world, in spite of its oil and mineral wealth, continues to remain in a state of stagnation as far as knowledge-based technological growth is concerned, he said.

He said education in general and science and technology in particular must be thought of as essential investments in national development and not as expenditure in order to build a knowledge-based economy.

In his speech, Islamic Development Bank president Ahmad Mohammad Ali enumerated the contribution made by the bank towards the promotion of science and technology in OIC region.— APP