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Muslim and Arab entrepreneurs from more than 50 countries will be in Washington for the next two days. They’re in DC to attend President Obama’s two-day ‘Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship’. The goal of the summit is to help build economic ties between the US and Muslim entrepreneurs. The World’s Jason Margolis has more.
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. Barack Obama garnered praise for a speech he gave to the Muslim world last June in Cairo. At the time the President promised a new beginning. Among the ways Mr. Obama pledged to help was to increase economic links with the Muslim world.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: On economic development, we will create a new corps of business volunteers to partner with counterparts in Muslim majority countries. And I will host a summit on entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.
WERMAN: Today the President opened that summit in Washington. The World’s Jason Margolis begins our coverage.
JASON MARGOLIS: The President promised big things in Cairo last year. Expectations were sky high. His critics say the President hasn’t delivered; that his Mid East policy is floundering. But today’s conference is a step in the right direction says David Haumod. He’s president of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce.
DAVID HAUMOD: Sixty to seventy percent of the population in the Arab and Muslim worlds is youth. And it’s very important that we engage those youth as stakeholders because when people put bread on the table, when they have jobs, they’re invested in the economy. When they don’t have jobs, it raises the prospects that they’ll get up to mischief.
MARGOLIS: Muslim and Arab entrepreneurs from more than 50 countries, from Morocco to Indonesia, Uganda to Kazakhstan, are in Washington today.
HAUMOD: In many of these countries historically all of the economic activity has been driven by governments. Those who have won most of the contracts are the big guys, the big companies. So what we’re trying to do here is effectively a game-changer that would create opportunities for small, medium sized enterprises.
MARGOLIS: That could help stimulate trade in both directions. The White House says building business ties between the U.S. and Muslim world is a tool of diplomacy. Rashad Hussein is the White House envoy to the Organization of Islamic Countries. He says it’s important to adopt a comprehensive approach to diplomacy, not just to focus on existing tensions.
RASHAD HUSSEIN: And we don’t want to define our relationship with Muslim communities around the world based on any one particular issue. We don’t want to securitize a relationship and say that violent extremism is the only important issue between the United States and Muslim communities around the world.
MARGOLIS: But geopolitical issues have long defined the relationship between the U.S. and Muslim world. Juan Zarate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington says Muslims care most about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Israeli-Arab conflict. Zarate applauds the President’s efforts with this week’s business summit, but . . .
JUAN ZARATE: We can’t be Pollyannaish about this. I think these are baby steps in a long road of engagement with Muslim majority communities that won’t solve the hard problems, but will certainly be helpful.
MARGOLIS: Zarate adds that the Washington summit matters not so much for what happens today and tomorrow, but what happens after. If the entrepreneurial summit creates jobs on the ground in the Muslim world, and not just political theater, that will go a long way towards improved relations. For The World, I’m Jason Margolis.
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