UUM ONLINE: Sarawak - The 2nd International Conference on Zakat, Tax, Waqf, and Economic Development (ZAWED 2022) was held last Thursday, with the theme of Strengthening Social Financial Institutions for the Sustainability of the Ummah's Economic Development.
Dato' Murshid DiRaja Dr. Juanda Jaya, Deputy Minister in the Sarawak Premier's Department (Integrity and Ombudsman), stated that social finance was expected to play a larger role in Malaysia's financial landscape, with Islamic finance leading the way, complementing public sector finance and commercially driven financial solutions.
"As social finance gains traction, multi-stakeholder coordination and collaboration will be essential to reduce the cost of sourcing and distribution, as well as promote greater public confidence in the issuance and governance of funds.
"This effort includes developing shared infrastructure or better using existing infrastructure, such as making it interoperable, to reduce barriers to social financial offerings," he said at ZAWED 2022, which was organised by the Zakat Research and Innovation Institute (IPIZ) of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and the Kedah State Zakat Board (LZNK) in collaboration with the Sarawak Prime Minister's Office.
Meanwhile, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation), Prof. Dr. Russayani Ismail, stated that the zakat system, waqf management, tax system, and related processes must be reviewed to ensure that all of these instruments truly benefit the community's economic development.
As a result, she stated, this seminar discussed approaches and methods to contribute to the exploration and practise of global knowledge that can benefit business and the community, as well as current issues related to the strengthening of social financial institutions for the sustainability of the community's economic development.
"UUM is pleased to work with interested parties not only to organise conferences like this, but also in conducting research called matching grants.
"We hope that more publications will be published and shared as a result of the research," she said.
He explained that UUM plays an important role in assisting the needy while also encouraging all parties to work more closely together to strengthen capacity and capability in order to improve all social financial institutions and support national development.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Selamah Maamor, Director of ZAWED2022, expressed her gratitude that ZAWED2022 could be realised in Miri, with 140 participants and more than 60 papers presented in a conference with 5 parallel sessions in four discussion rooms.
"In general participants were excited to with the sharing of research results from researchers from all over the world including Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nigeria and Tanzania.
"Many UUM researchers who received the IPIZ-LZNK research grant took advantage of the opportunity to present their final research report, while their research results were continued to be shared with ZAWED2022 participants," said the Director of IPIZ.
At ZAWED2022, the Best Paper Award and Best Presenter were presented as tokens of appreciation to the writers and presenters who met the organizer's requirements.
She described the successful organisation of ZAWED2022 as a major accomplishment for IPIZ and expressed her hope that the launch of IPIZ 2.0 at ZAWED2022 would encourage IPIZ to continue its efforts to become a leading Zakat Research Centre on the international stage.