IRI Takes on Second Islamic Finance Leadership Programme

By Natalie Yazhary

Washington DC –  IF Analytica recently hosted a five day conference, called the Second Islamic Finance Leadership Programme, at Clare College, University of Cambridge (UK) from August 20-25, 2016. Sponsored by the Islamic Corportation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), the program was created to spread expertise and leadership in the area of Islamic banking and finance.

Many speakers and experts joined the activities program, including, “Dr. Adnan Chilwan, Group CEO of Dubai Islamic Bank, UAE, Fadi Al Faqih, CEO of Bank of Khartoum, Sudan and Dato’Wan Fadzmi Wan Othman, [and] President and CEO of Agrobank, Malaysia,” according to the Islamic Reporting Initiative (IRI).

During these five days, IRI was able to engage with various experts to discuss sustainability and Corporate Sustainability & Social Responsibility (CSR) in the areas surrounding Islamic Finance. IRI mentioned, “According to the Islamic Finance Development report 2015 developed by ICD and Thomson Reuters, total Islamic finance CSR funds disbursed reached 526 million US dollars including Qard Al Hassan funds, Zakat and charity funds in 2014. However, there is a serious lack of disclosure of CSR activities and funds disbursed.”

Additionally, Dr. Elfers, founder of the IRI, added that “the process of reporting may yield multiple benefits; it provides a window of opportunity to analyse and evaluate an organization’s internal systems and processes, and enables risk to be fairly assigned across all departments, stakeholders and partners by integrating these into an organization-wide process.”

By creating transparency in an organization, the IRI connects each aspect of a business, from investors to consumers. This not-for-profit aims to create and incorporate CSR into the framework of various businesses and organizations, while still maintaining Islamic principles and values. This conference was crucial in IRI’s goal to expand their CSR initiative, and to promote the harmony between corporate culture and Islamic principles.