Translated by Sabrin Qadah 

Ramallah - The Governor of the Islamic Development Bank for Palestine, D. Mohammed Shtayyeh, announced the start of candidacy for the 2018 Award for Women in Development. The nomination is open to individuals and organizations.

He pointed out that the theme of this year's award is "Women's contribution to promoting peace and stability". The award will recognize the extraordinary achievements of women in various aspects in promoting peace and resilience.

He explained that the theme of the award for this year is loose, and allows dozens of Palestinian women and organizations who have contributed much to our community to run for the prize and compete with hundreds of women and other organizations from the member countries of the Islamic Development Bank.

The award for individuals would be given to women who had made extraordinary efforts to reduce conflict and strengthen the resilience of society, or had an impact on women's development and empowerment against all constraints. Adding that the most important criteria for the nomination of individuals for them to be socially active women, and for their projects to contribute to the promotion of peace, stability, innovation, as well as being nominated by an organization.

With regard to the Women's Leadership Award, he said that the organization must have achievements in reducing conflicts, strengthening community resilience or developing women's capacities in society, promoting community integration, providing opportunities for women as well as contributing to peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction. He pointed out that the eligibility criteria must be a registered and non-profit organization with a women's decision-making body that supports projects and clearly highlights the role of women in achieving peace.

Shtayyeh invited organizations and individuals to apply for the award. He pointed out that women have been luckier to get the award during the past years. For this year, Donia Specialist Center for Women's Cancer has won the award for its role in "contributing to the prevention and control of cancer." While the award of 2016 went to Mrs. Nafisa Deek for her role in "the promotion of girls rights," pointing out that two other prizes were won by Palestine, one for the Society for “in’ash al-usrah” in 2006, and the other received by Palestinian Ms. Fatima Jada for the same year.

On the value of the award, Shtayyeh said that there are two cash prizes granted on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Bank, the first prize (50 thousand dollars) granted to one woman or a group of women, and the second prize (100 thousand dollars) to organizations from different Arab and Islamic countries.

The governor of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), called on those who want to run for candidacy to fill the electronic application on the Islamic Development Bank website (www.isdb.org), or to get it directly from the Economic Development and Reconstruction Council (PECDAR). The deadline for submission of applications is November 30, this year. For further information, please contact the governor's office in Ramallah at (2974362).