TOP officials will meet in Bahrain tomorrow to map out a $10 billion (BD3.78bn) campaign to combat poverty throughout the Islamic world.

The high-level advisory panel for the Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development (ISFD) will meet at the Gulf Hotel.

ISFD was established within the Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank following a decision of the third extraordinary meeting of the Islamic Summit, held in Makkah Al Mukarramah in December 2005.

It will be held under the patronage of Finance Minister and the bank’s board of governors chairman Shaikh Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa.

The fund, the objectives of which are linked directly to supporting the achievements of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, will focus on combating poverty, reducing illiteracy and fighting communicable diseases in the bank’s least developed member countries (80 per cent of which are in Africa), as well as in pockets of poverty in other member countries.