COMCEC Financial Outlook 2018
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3.2 Implementation of the Strategy
In line with its objectives and expected outcomes, the COMCEC Strategy brings well-identified
operational instruments, i.e. the Working Groups and the COMCEC Project Funding Mechanism.
3.2.1 COMCEC Financial Cooperation Working Group
The COMCEC Financial Cooperation Working Group aims to bring the relevant finance experts
from the OIC Member States regularly together and to serve as a regular platform for the
Member Country experts to discuss their common issues in finance sector and share their
knowledge, experiences and best practices, for disseminating knowledge, developing common
understanding and approximating policies among Member Countries. The Working Group has
held 11 meetings so far.
The proceedings of the abovementioned Meetings and the presentations made during these
Meetings are available on the COMCEC web page ).
In its recent meetings, the Financial Cooperation Working Group has been focusing on different
aspects of Islamic Finance, namely risk management, Islamic Finance strategies, financial
architecture, diversification of instruments, Sukuk and Islamic fund management. Furthermore,
it will also elaborate on infrastructure financing through Islamic Finance, takaful, Shariah
governance, standardization, Entrepreneurs and SMEs financing and Islamic Social finance in its
future Meetings.
3.2.2 COMCEC Project Funding Mechanism
The other important instrument for the implementation of the COMCEC Strategy is the new
COMCEC Project Funding Mechanism. Through its Project Funding Mechanism, the CCO
provides grants to the selected projects proposed by the relevant OIC institutions and Member
States that have already registered with the Financial Cooperation Working Group.
In 2018, two financial cooperation projects are being supported under the COMCEC Project
Funding. The owner of the first project titled “Training and Guidelines on Sukuk Issuance” is
Nigeria and their partners are Gambia and Togo. Within the scope of the project, a training
program and a workshop were organized in Nigeria. During the training program, key people
from agencies related to the Sukuk was trained on the effective issuance of a Sukuk from the
issuance to its resale on the secondary market. In addition, in the workshop, which held in Abuja
with the participation of the representatives from issuing agencies, financial regulators,
participants discussed the effective issuance of the Sukuk.
The project titled “Improving Financial Consumer Protection in the OIC Countries” was
implemented by Turkey with the participation of 11 member countries. The project aims at
achieving a better functioning financial consumer protection for the OIC countries by evaluating
and standardizing best practices, administrative experiences and rising trends in financial
consumer protection policy field. In this regard, an international workshop with the
participation of the project partners was held in İstanbul, Turkey. During the workshop,
participants focused on determining a comprehensive financial consumer protection strategy
by evaluating and standardizing best practices, cross-border trade and dispute resolution,
administrative experiences, joint/coordinated actions, and the other rising trends in the
consumer protection policy field.