CENTRE OF ISLAMIC

BANKING & ECONOMICS

Head Office: 160 B Ahmed Block, Ph: +92-42-35913096-8 E-mail: info@alhudacibe.com
New Garden Town Lahore, Pakistan. Fax: +92 -42-35913056 Website: www.alhudacibe.com

Press Release
The Global Islamic Microfinance Forum will be held in U.A.E
The Forum will determine the Standards and policies for sustainable Islamic
Microfinance development.
05/09/2012



















(Pakistan) The Global Islamic Microfinance Forum on Islamic Microfinance is going to be held in U.A.E on
8th December, 2012 in which the delegates of more than 30 countries are expected. The purpose of Forum
is to introduce Islamic Microfinance in the global canvas as an effective tool for poverty alleviation and
Social development, to set its standards, to develop Islamic Microfinance internationally and to have
dialogue with International Donor/Development agencies for sustainable development. Two days
specialized workshop is been arranged after the forum in which the Shariah standards and marketing
strategies of Islamic Microfinance will be discussed. It should be noted that this forum is being jointly
arranged by AlHuda Centre of Islamic Banking and Economics (CIBE) and Akhuwat. Akhuwat is a Pakistan
based institute which has been distributed 2.5 Billion PKR amongst 177,000 families via Islamic
Microfinance.

Executive Director of Akhuwat, Mr. Amjad Saqib said that through this Forum, Islamic Microfinance will be
introduced as a sustainable system around the world so that Islamic Microfinance could be properly utilized
in order to take the world out of the darkness of poverty.
While briefing about the purpose and aims of this Forum, Chief Executive Officer of AlHuda Centre of
CENTRE OF ISLAMIC
BANKING & ECONOMICS

Head Office: 160 B Ahmed Block, Ph: +92-42-35913096-8 E-mail: info@alhudacibe.com
New Garden Town Lahore, Pakistan. Fax: +92 -42-35913056 Website: www.alhudacibe.com

Islamic Banking and Economics, Mr. Muhammad Zubair Mughal said that poverty is going up due to the
failure of present microfinance system whereas in order to solve this problem, whole world is looking
towards Islamic Microfinance. He said that if Islamic Microfinance would not be included in the strategies
for alleviating poverty then the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of United Nations
would become so difficult because Muslims are 46% of Worlds total poverty and United Nations has added
26 countries from the 57 Countries of OIC among the Least Developed Countries. So, Islamic Microfinance
is mandatory in order to alleviate poverty from the Muslim Countries because Muslims avoid Conventional
Microfinance due to the factor of interest, as Interest is strictly prohibited in Islamic thats way Interest is
an important reason for the poverty in Muslim Countries. It is worth to mentioning that Islamic
Microfinance is a system, it is not a religion, I can be utilized/operated by Muslims or Non-Muslims for
social development & poverty alleviation.

He further said that now the time has come that the International Organization like UN, ADB, IFC, USAID,
GIZ, DIFD, and IFAD etc. play their role to alleviate poverty from the world by including Islamic Microfinance
in the strategies to reduce poverty. He said that Islamic Microfinance has more characteristics to alleviate
poverty in comparison with Conventional Microfinance and it can be easily integrated with all the models
of Microfinance like Grameen Model, Village banking Model, co- operative Model and Self Help Group
Model etc. So in order to introduce Islamic Microfinance in the world, very fewer changes would be needed
to make in Microfinance industry.

Forum shall last for 3 days, at the end of which, a declaration will be issued. #