SESRIC participated in the IOFS High-Level Panel on “AI and Food Security: A Qur’anic Compass for Sustainable Innovation”, held on 24 October 2026 within the framework of the IQRA’ 2026 Global Conference. Held virtually from the Headquarters of the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) in Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco, on 24–25 October 2026 under the theme “Guiding the Digital Age: A Qur’anic Direction for Human-Centered Innovation and Sustainable Development”, the Conference was co-organised by the International Qur’an Research Association (IQRA’), ICESCO, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Islamic Organization for Food Security (IOFS) and other partners.

Chaired by IOFS and moderated by Mr Abdulla Manafi Mutualo, Chief Multilateral Relations Officer at IOFS, the panel explored how artificial intelligence can support productive, resilient, safe and inclusive food systems across OIC Member Countries, connecting AI capabilities, food-security needs and practical policy and institutional action. The panel brought together experts in AI, food systems, animal health and Islamic economics, including representatives of IOFS, Universiti Putra Malaysia and the African Union-InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR).

Representing SESRIC, Mr Onur Çağlar, Director of the Statistics and Information Department, underlined that the benefits of AI for food security depend first and foremost on the quality of the underlying data. Drawing on the principles of knowledge, justice and responsibility (amanah), he highlighted the importance of verified and well-documented data, of inclusive and disaggregated statistics that leave no smallholder farmer or vulnerable community uncounted, and of strong data governance, privacy protection and human oversight in the use of AI.

Mr Çağlar presented SESRIC’s work in this area, including the OIC Statistics Database (OICStat), which hosts around 1,900 socio-economic indicators on OIC Member Countries, among them more than a hundred agriculture indicators, as well as SESRIC’s reports on Agriculture and Food Security in OIC Member Countries. He also referred to SESRIC’s Statistical Capacity Building (StatCaB) Programme, which has organised training courses on agriculture statistics and food-security analysis in cooperation with national statistical offices, FAO and IOFS, as well as the Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-CaB) and Digital Transformation (Digi-CaB) capacity-building programmes. He noted that the use of artificial intelligence in official statistics has been on the agenda of the OIC Statistical Commission (OIC-StatCom), for which SESRIC serves as the Secretariat.

SESRIC remains committed to working closely with IOFS, OIC institutions and national statistical offices to strengthen food-security data and statistical capacities and to support the responsible use of AI for sustainable agrifood systems across OIC Member Countries.

For more information on the conference, please visit: https://iqra.study/iqra-2026-global-conference/