The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has played an increasingly important role in the past several years in the area of supporting economic and
social development plans and programs in Third World countries in general and in Islamic developing countries in particular. The Kingdom allocates a major part of its annual national product to assisting developing countries implement their respective development programs. In some years of the past decade, this assistance has amounted to 6% of GNP, whereas the industrial countries as a group fell short of achieving the modest rate of assistance flowing from developed to developing countries as called for by the United Nations, namely 0.7% of gross national product.
The total non-reimbursable development assistance and concessional loans provided by the Kingdom during the past 15 years to the developing countries that are members of the Islamic Conference Organization amounted to about 77,000 million Saudi Riyals. These funds have contributed toward the implementation of economic and social development programs and projects in 35 sister Islamic nations.
