D-8: Not much to boast about

D-8, an organisation of eight developing Muslim countries - Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey - is no exception. Meeting after meeting, old pledges are recounted in a manner to make them look afresh. The achievements are too small and, therefore, not much is said about the "progress" that is routinely reviewed. The leaders' addresses are spiced with clichés reflecting their concerns about the international issues, which have emerged since they last met.

It should not be surprising, therefore, that the growth in the centrepiece of D-8's agenda, trade and economic cooperation between member states, that has taken place but is not as significant as it is made out to be in the Kuala Lumpur Declaration issued at the end of its summit early this month, has resulted from the dynamics of increasing globalisation and owe very little to the D-8's charter. After all, if the intra-D-8 trade had risen from $14.5 billion in 1999 to $60.5 billion in 2007, a long period of eight years, it is not much to boast about. It comes to around five percent of the member countries global trade.

The 10-year roadmap the participants agreed upon envisages the trade to go up by the end of the period to $517.5 billion i.e. 15 percent of their expected global trade at that time. The goal is indeed laudable but would need honest commitment to reach. The huge (50-member) delegation the Pakistan Prime Minister took with him to Kuala Lumpur reflects very poorly on the leadership's concern for the suffering masses, especially when the rising inflation is squeezing so hard that the figure below the poverty line is fast growing. Such an attitude does not befit democracies.