UNICEF and IsDB launch the first global fund built on Muslim philanthropy for children

UNICEF and the Islamic Development Bank launched the Global Muslim Philanthropy Fund for Children, the first UN-led Muslim philanthropy fund run in partnership with a multilateral development bank. The fund channels zakat, sadaqah and waqf — classical Islamic giving instruments, with global annual zakat alone estimated at up to $600 billion — toward a $250 million target for humanitarian and development programmes across the 57 member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, covering education, health, nutrition, water and sanitation, early childhood development, child protection and youth empowerment. IsDB administers the fund and accepts contributions from foundations, zakat agencies and individuals alongside government and multilateral money; Abdul Aziz Abdulla Al Ghurair pledged $10 million over three years specifically for refugee education in the Middle East and North Africa. The structural test here is whether a UN agency and a multilateral development bank can absorb classical giving instruments into standard development finance without stripping out what makes them distinct — obligation in the case of zakat, discretion in the case of sadaqah, perpetuity in the case of waqf — or whether the instruments simply become another funding line.

This is a QeRN summary by Ahmed Qerni. Read the original at UNICEF: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-and-islamic-development-bank-launch-first-global-muslim-philanthropy-fund.