Dhaka has been declared as the ‘OIC Youth Capital for 2020’ by the OIC Youth and Sports Ministers Conference in Turkey.
“This announcement brightens our image. Bangladesh would be known in all the OIC countries as the youth capital. Youths will be interested to visit Bangladesh. So it’ll be helpful for our tourism,” Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen told Bangladesh Post on Saturday.
Mentionable, OIC, or Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, is the second largest inter-governmental organisation after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents.
The Organisation is the collective voice of the Muslim world. It endeavors to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various people of the world.
The decision of declaring the ‘youth capital’ was taken by the Islamic Cooperation Youth Forum (ICYF) Executive Board in its capacity as the OIC Youth Capital selection committee on December 25 in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Secretariat of the ICYF, an international institution affiliated to the OIC, conveyed the decision to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Bangladesh.
The Forum was established at its Founding General Assembly held in Baku, Azerbaijan on December 1-3, 2004 to facilitate the resolution of social-economic, moral and cultural problems of the youth of the OIC region facing with and promote the exchange of ideas and experiences and mutual understanding among young people from the OIC countries.
The foreign minister said Bangladesh’s youths are active in many things from IT to sports. “We have over 600,000 freelancers in IT sector. Our government is working on youths’ skill development. We are sending youth representatives in different forums,” the foreign minister told Bangladesh Post.
“They (OIC body) took the decision considering all those things,” he said, expecting that the ministry of youth and sports will take different programmes focusing on the announcement next year.