JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia ranked 7th in providing relief globally, says KSRelief head The Saudi Aid Platform is a high-tech national platform that records the Kingdom’s charitable assistance worldwide.

King Salman launched the electronic platform on Feb. 26, Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, general supervisor of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief), told a seminar on Tuesday at OECD headquarters in Paris.

Al-Rabeeah said that Saudi Arabia ranked 7th in providing relief globally. “Saudi Arabia’s official development assistance (ODA) amounted to $84.7 billion between 1996 and 2018, representing 1.9 percent of Gross National Income (GNI) — a percentage that is higher than the UN’s target of 0.7 percent of GNI dedicated to ODA.”

He said that the Kingdom had hosted 561,911 Yemeni refugees, 262,573 Syrian refugees, and more than 249,000 Rohingya refugees. “KSRelief has implemented 457 humanitarian and relief projects worth about $1.9 billion, targeting 40 countries and 124 local, international, and UN partners across the world.” 

“The number of projects targeting children since 2015 amounted to 171 projects, aiding 71,584 children with $504,962 million, 59 percent of which has been allocated to the food sector, 14 percent to education and protection, and 27 percent to health care and sanitation.”

KSRelief had developed electronic models for recording humanitarian, development, and charity projects and contributions according to international documentation standards adopted by the OECD Development Assistance Committee, the UN Financial Tracking Service and the principles of the International Aid Transparency Initiative.

He said that Saudi Arabia’s 1,297 projects had reached $33.39 billion: $22.48 billion for Asia, $9.98 billion for Africa, $379 million for Europe, $376 million for North America, and $170 million for Europe and Central Asia.

The countries that received the largest share of Saudi aid were Yemen, with 338 projects worth $13.412 billion, followed by Syria, with 209 projects worth $2.764 billion, Egypt, with 21 projects worth $1.949 billion, Mauritania, with 15 projects worth $1.269 billion, and Niger, with 7 projects worth $1.230 million.