The D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation

The D-8, or Developing-8, is an economic-cooperation grouping of eight large Muslim-majority developing countries spread across the Middle East, Africa, South and Southeast Asia.

At a glance

Launched by the Istanbul Declaration of 1997 on the initiative of Turkey, the D-8 brings together Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey — populous, industrialising states that together account for a large share of the Muslim world's people and output. Its aims are practical rather than political: to expand trade among the members, improve their position in the global economy, and cooperate in fields such as agriculture, industry, energy and finance.

Unlike the faith-defined OIC or the region-defined Arab League and GCC, the D-8 is a self-selected club of major economies, and its members do not form a contiguous bloc. From a secretariat in Istanbul it has pursued a preferential trade agreement and periodic summits, though intra-D-8 trade has grown more slowly than its founders hoped.

The group is often discussed alongside the Economic Cooperation Organization and the OIC's own COMCEC as one of several overlapping attempts to knit the economies of Muslim-majority states more tightly together.

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Curated reference on Islamic belief and thought. On matters where traditions differ, positions are attributed rather than adjudicated; verify points of doctrine with qualified scholars.