Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, 2 June 2022 - The Islamic Development Bank Institute (IsDBI) and the UNDP Istanbul International Center for Private Sector in Development (IICPSD) have launched a new Massive Open Online Course on Islamic Finance for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The launching ceremony was held during the 16th IsDB Global Forum on Islamic Finance, held on 2 June 2022 on the sidelines of the 2022 IsDB Group Annual Meetings Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

IsDBI and IICPSD developed the MOOC through a partnership with Durham University Business School, with the support of the IsDB’s Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Fund.

The launching was performed in the presence of Dr. Sami Al-Suwailem, Acting Director General of IsDBI, and IICPSD’s Director Mr. Sahba Sobhani.

The MOOC is the first-of-its-kind training program specifically designed to engage development professionals and Islamic finance practitioners under the sustainable development umbrella and leverage Islamic finance instruments to finance the SDGs. It brings together 27 internationally recognized subject matter experts from 11 countries and 3 continents as course instructors.

During the launching, Ms. Fatma Çınar, Islamic Finance Portfolio Lead at IICPSD, gave a presentation highlighting the key components and objectives of the MOOC.

Dr. Rami Abdelkafi, Head of IsDBI Knowledge Leaders Team, explained that the course will be available free on both the IsDBI’s page on the edX platform as well as UNDP’s Learning for Nature Platform.