RIYADH, Oct 22: The Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has approved a sum of 50 million dollars for providing relief and assistance to the war-torn Afghanistan and its people.

Five million dollars of this approved amount would be used to provide urgent supplies to the refugees. The remaining money would be used for rehabilitation purposes.

In a preparatory session before the IDB finance ministers meeting scheduled for today (Tuesday) in Algiers, the bank decided to discus the issue of raising the bank’s capital from the current nine billion dollars to 20 billion dollars.

The IDB Board of Governors will discuss raising the bank’s capital to 20 billion dollars, sources said. Bank officials said the projected capital increase was meant to enable the bank meet its growing commitments towards the Muslim states, specially its least developed members in Africa.