COMCEC Agriculture Outlook 2018
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4. Agricultural Cooperation under the COMCEC
Agriculture is one of the most important cooperation areas of the COMCEC. It has been
prioritized by the COMCEC Economic Summit held in November 2009 in İstanbul. The COMCEC
Strategy, adopted by the 4th Extraordinary Islamic Summit held on 14-15 August 2012 in
Makkah, has also determined agriculture as one of the six cooperation areas of the COMCEC.
The COMCEC Strategy sets the “Increasing the productivity of agricultural sector and sustaining
food security in the OIC Member Countries” as its strategic objective. The COMCEC Strategy also
highlights the common challenges of the agriculture sector in the OIC member countries, among
others, as the following:
 Low level of agricultural productivity,
 Lack of appropriate legal and regulatory framework,
 Low agro-industry investments,
 Poor basic infrastructure and related services
 Low level of agricultural mechanization,
 Low level of research and development activities,
 Lack of reliable and up-to-date data
In order to address these challenges, the COMCEC Strategy, in its Agriculture Section, identifies
four Output Areas (Increasing Productivity, Regulatory Framework and Institutional Capacity,
Reliable and Up-to-date Data and Market Performance) as well as specific expected outcomes
under them.
In addition, this Outlook prepared by the COMCEC Coordination Office elaborately sets out some
problems of the OIC agriculture sector with a view to display the situation in the OIC Member
Countries. The Outlook highlights that the challenges facing the OIC member countries need to
be determined accurately and extensively. In this respect, in order to contribute to development
of the OIC Agriculture sector, it is crucial to initiate projects and programmes to reach the
expected outcomes determined in accordance with the aforementioned challenges.
With the purpose of realizing the objectives and the expected outcomes of the cooperation areas,
Working Groups (WG) have been formed under each cooperation area. The COMCEC Agriculture
Working Group (AWG) has been established to achieve the objectives of the COMCEC Strategy
in this context. Within the framework of the Strategy, the COMCEC Agriculture Working Group
provides a regular platform for the member country experts to discuss their common issues,
concerns and problems as well as to share experiences and good practices. Moreover, the AWG
serves in developing a common understanding and approximating policies among the member
countries in this crucial sector.
In this respect, the 1st meeting of the AWG was held in June 2013 with the theme of “Increasing
Agricultural Productivity in the OIC Member Countries: Improving Irrigation Capacity”. The 2nd
meeting was held in December 2013with the theme of "Encouraging Foreign Direct Investments
(FDIs) in the OIC Member Countries for Increasing Agricultural Productivity." Furthermore, the
3rd meeting Agriculture WG was held in April 2014 in Ankara with the theme of “Improving the
Statistical Capacity of the Agriculture Sector in the OIC Member Countries”. After that, the 4th