The member states would contribute $8.70 million, and $2.85 million would be obtained from external sources.
Revealing this at a press conference on Friday, Comstech Assistant Coordinator-General Mohammad Ali Mahaisir recalled the members had promised to contribute $1.3 million in the 10th General Assembly meeting, he said that the present situation depicted quite some improvement and the number of delegates at the General Assembly session was as high as from 39 countries.
The representatives of five countries - Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Turkey and Yemen - had been elected vice chairmen. And, more to it, as many as 23 countries submitted their reports about progress in the fields of science and technology during the last two years.
Earlier, speaking at the General Assembly session, the Pakistan Minister in-charge for Science and Technology, Dr Attaur Rehman urged the OIC states to quit total reliance on borrowed technologies for prompt development and progress.
The OIC countries must invest in scientific and technological research and make it an integral part of their national development plans. The Pakistan minister, who is also Coordinator General of Comstech, said true progress could only be achieved by benefiting from creative minds.
He said knowledge had become the main driving force of world economies and the basis of socio-economic development of individual countries.
The recent advances in information technology, genetics, biotechnology and other emerging disciplines hold immense prospects for the wellbeing of mankind as a whole.
However, lamenting that most OIC member states continued with their myopic policy of low investment in education and scientific research, he rightly pointed out that despite lagging behind the West in every vital sphere, they were spending only 0.1 to 0.2 percent of their small GDPs on scientific research.
As against this, he said, the OIC countries were spending as high as seven percent of their GDPs on defence, while earmarking less than one percent for scientific effort.
Needless to point to the vivid contrast the developed countries make by contributing 95 percent of the new scientific development in the world, though they comprise only one fifth of its population, thereby owning most of the planet's wealth.
As the minister noted, ill planning by OIC member countries had resulted in a number of problems such as low literacy rate, slow economic growth, increasing dependence on the West and transfer of resources to the advanced countries.
Reference, in this regard, may also be made to his observation that despite spending up to seven percent of their GDP on defence, most OIC countries still remained dependent on the West in this regard as well.
It is really unfortunate that the Muslim world, in spite of its oil and mineral wealth, continues to live in a state of stagnation as far as knowledge-based technological growth is concerned. As such, education in general and science and technology in particular, must be thought of as essential investments in national development and not as expenditure in order to build a knowledge-based economy.
Viewed in this perspective, the small increase in the OIC member nations' contribution to advancement in science and technology will certainly call for a much bigger effort in years to come.
Perhaps, the one sure way to ensuring this will be to go for compulsory funding by all the member countries, as President Musharraf pointed out in his opening address.