By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

The 8th Global Donors Forum kicked off in London on Monday under the theme of Building Resilient Ecosystems.

The event, organized by the Chicago-based World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists, opened at the British Museum.

The forum will highlight the rare developments that are proving to be effective in reducing deficits, inequalities, and tensions that fuel extremism.

The three-day event will also focus on issues such as human dignity, resistance to radicalization, and social solidarity.

Turkey’s First Lady Emine Erdogan will be presented a humanitarian service award in London on the second day of the forum.

The Humanitarian Service Recognition Award acknowledges the first lady’s philanthropic efforts for the needy, especially the Rohingya that drew international attention.

She first went to Myanmar in 2012 and drew international attention to the persecution of Rohingya.

On Sep. 7, last year, the first lady and Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visited refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh where Rohingya Muslims took shelter after fleeing Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

They handed out humanitarian aid to Rohingya Muslim refugees at a camp in Cox’s Bazar district near the Myanmar border.

The Global Donors Forum, the biennial convening of the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists, mobilizes financial and intellectual resources to create socio-economic value beyond racial, religious and political divides, according to the official website of the forum.

The first forum meeting was held in Istanbul in 2008.