Prince Talal annouced Manila To host the AGFUND Prize Award Cermony

HRH Prince Talal Bin Abdulaziz, President of the Arab Gulf Programme for Development (AGFUND) announced the capital of Philippines (Manila), to host the Award Ceremony of AGFUND International Prize in which the projects competed to win the Prize in the fields of “Development of remote and rural communities through ICT and Youth Empowerment” will be honored. Mr. Nasser Al-Kahtani, Executive Director of AGFUND, declared that the government of Philippines has highly commended Prince Talal’s developmental and humanitarian efforts through AGFUND and the other institutions he sponsors and welcomed the ceremony to be held in Manila. AL-Kahtani said that the preparations for the ceremony are going ahead and the invitations were extended to representatives of development organizations, media and civil society leaders in a number of countries. He added that Manila will also witness the Fourteenth Meeting of AGFUND Prize Committee to be held on the eve of the award ceremony to approve the winners of the Prize in the field of “food security for the poor” and select the Prize subject for the year 2013. The annual ceremony of the Prize is meant to ensure wide publicity for the Prize and has yet toured different parts of the world, namely; Geneva, Paris, New Delhi, Tunis, Cape Town, Warsaw, Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur. It is worth mentioning that AGFUND International Prize is considered to be an extension of AGFUND’s approach to focus on the key issues of human development to realize sustainability and investment in man. It has since its inception in 1999 received a total of 1062 projects from 130 countries and launched 25 subjects covering a variety of fields including poverty alleviation, water, environment, rural development, health, education, training, women and child development, youth empowerment, technology and food security. The Prize has honored 42 projects as being most innovative and pioneering.