Development Co‑operation Profiles: Saudi Arabia
Table of contents
Saudi Arabia’s development co-operation aims to promote global stability and economic growth, with a focus on large-scale infrastructure, humanitarian relief and sustainable development. Several entities are responsible for providing Saudi Arabia’s development co-operation, including the Ministry of Finance, the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), and the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief). Saudia Arabia places a strong focus on supporting fragile contexts to foster long-term resilience. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s largest donors of official development assistance (ODA). In 2024, Saudi Arabia provided USD 5.6 billion of ODA, representing 0.45% of gross national income (GNI).
This profile presents verified data on Saudia Arabia’s development assistance allocations. See the Development Co-operation Profiles.
Saudi Arabia’s development co-operation is aligned with the country’s Vision 2030 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The country is currently working on a national development co-operation strategy. Bilaterally, Saudi Arabia provides direct development co-operation and humanitarian assistance to partner countries mainly through the SFD and KSRelief. It prioritises projects in least developed and low-income countries, and focuses on food security, clean water and healthcare, as well as financing transportation and energy networks.
Saudi Arabia is also engaged in the multilateral development system. It engages through regional organisations such as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and through regional finance institutions, including the Islamic Development Bank and the Arab Gulf Program for Development. Saudi Arabia is also actively involved in multilateral fora and institutions, including the United Nations (UN) organisations, the World Bank and the G20. It held the presidency of the G20 in 2020 and advanced the financing for sustainable development agenda.
Saudi Arabia provided USD 5.6 billion of ODA in 2024, representing 0.45% of GNI.1 This was a decrease of 0.9% in real terms in volume and a decrease in the share of GNI from 2023. In 2024, Saudi Arabia did not meet international commitments to achieve a 0.7% ODA/GNI ratio. Within Saudi Arabia’s ODA portfolio in 2024, 91% was provided in the form of grants and 9% was extended as loans.
In 2024, Saudi Arabia ranked as second in terms of ODA/GNI percentage share among other official providers beyond the DAC. Saudi Arabia channelled the majority of its ODA bilaterally, and had a high volume of gross bilateral ODA to least developed countries (LDCs) and lower middle income countries (LMICs).
Notes: This table only includes information about ODA data-related DAC recommendations. ODA: official development assistance; GNI: gross national income; DAC: Development Assistance Committee.
Saudi Arabia provided by far most of its ODA bilaterally in 2024. Gross bilateral ODA was 91.3% of total ODA disbursements. Of this, 4.1% was channelled through multilateral organisations (earmarked contributions).
In 2024, Saudi Arabia provided USD 726 million of gross ODA to the multilateral system, an increase of 61.8% in real terms from 2023. Of this, USD 508.1 million was core multilateral ODA (8.7% of total ODA), while USD 217.9 million was non-core contributions earmarked for a specific country, region, theme or purpose. Project-type funding earmarked for a specific theme and/or country accounted for 5.4% of Saudi Arabia’s non-core contributions, and 94.6% was programmatic funding (to pooled funds and specific-purpose programmes and funds).
The UN system received 36.2% of Saudi Arabia’s contributions to multilateral organisations, of which USD 195.2 million (74.3%) represented earmarked contributions. Out of a total volume of USD 262.8 million to the UN system, the top three UN recipients of Saudi Arabia’s support (core and earmarked contributions) were the World Food Programme (USD 72.9 million), the World Health Organization (USD 44.1 million) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (USD 40 million).
See the section on Geographic, sectoral and thematic focus of ODA for the breakdown of bilateral allocations, including ODA earmarked through the multilateral development system.
In 2024, Saudi Arabia’s bilateral spending declined compared to the previous year. It provided USD 5.3 billion of gross bilateral ODA (which includes earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations). This represented a decrease of 2.9% in real terms from 2023.
In 2024, country programmable aid amounted to USD 4.7 billion, or 88% of Saudi Arabia’s gross bilateral ODA.
Saudi Arabia’s humanitarian aid in 2024 was USD 449.2 million or 5.8% of gross bilateral ODA.
In 2024, Saudi Arabia channelled its bilateral ODA mainly through public sector.
In 2024, Saudi Arabia’s bilateral ODA primarily focused on Asia (excluding the Middle East). USD 3.4 billion was allocated to Asia (excluding the Middle East) and USD 1.2 billion to the Middle East, accounting respectively for 63.2% and 22.3% of gross bilateral ODA. USD 389.4 million was allocated to countries in Africa. The Middle East was also the main regional recipient of Saudi Arabia’s earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations. This is in line with Saudi Arabia’s regional development co‑operation priorities.
In 2024, 85.2% of gross bilateral ODA went to Saudi Arabia’s top 10 recipients. Its top 10 recipients are in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The share of gross bilateral ODA not allocated by country was 5.1%.
In 2024, Saudi Arabia allocated 0.11% of its GNI to the least developed countries (LDCs). Saudi Arabia allocated the highest share of gross bilateral ODA (64%) to lower middle-income countries in 2024, noting that 5.1% was unallocated by income group. LDCs received 23.9% of Saudi Arabia’s gross bilateral ODA (USD 1.3 billion).
The distribution of Saudi Arabia’s ODA in net terms in relation to “ODA per person in extreme poverty”2 was USD 1.4 in LDCs, USD 5.8 in lower middle-income countries (LMICs) and USD 2.8 in upper middle-income countries.
In 2024, Saudi Arabia provided USD 49.9 million of net bilateral ODA to Ukraine to respond to the impacts of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion, of which USD 48.6 million of the amount was humanitarian assistance.
Support to contexts with high and extreme fragility was USD 4.6 billion in 2024, representing 86.4% of Saudi Arabia’s gross bilateral ODA. Of this ODA, 4.4% was provided in the form of humanitarian assistance, an increase from 3.8% in 2023, while 0.9% was allocated to peace, a decrease from 1.3% in 2023. Conflict prevention, a subset of contributions to peace, represented 0.8% of gross bilateral ODA. Learn more about the States of Fragility platform.
In 2024, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s bilateral ODA was allocated to general budget support (under other sectors), amounting to USD 3.8 billion. Other Investments under other sectors included administrative costs of donors (USD 181.8 million) and development food assistance (USD 53.2 million). ODA for economic infrastructure and services totalled USD 1.4 billion, with a focus on transport and storage (USD 804.1 million). Social infrastructure and services amounted to USD 1.3 billion (17.3% of bilateral ODA). Earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations also focused on social sectors and other macro sectors in 2024.
On average per year in 2023-2024, Saudi Arabia committed USD 3.3 million in bilateral allocable ODA in support of gender equality and USD 1.5 million to end violence against women and girls.
In 2024, Saudi Arabia:
Allocated 3% of its bilateral ODA (USD 158.4 million) to core poverty-reducing sectors as defined by SDG 1.a.1. This indicator captures grants to basic social services (such as basic health and education, water supply and sanitation, multisector aid for basic social services) and development food aid. In addition, 0.1% of bilateral ODA (USD 2.7 million) went to social protection support. Learn more by exploring the Reducing poverty and inequalities through ODA data explainer.
Committed USD 1.7 billion (45.2% of its bilateral allocable ODA) to promote aid for trade and improve developing countries’ trade performance and integration into the world economy in 2024. Saudi Arabia is among the top 10 official providers of aid for trade globally. Learn more by exploring the Aid for Trade dashboard.
Total official support for sustainable development (TOSSD) is an international statistical standard that monitors and increases the transparency of all official and officially supported resources for financing the SDGs received by developing countries (Pillar 1) and for addressing global challenges (Pillar 2). In 2024, activities reported by Saudi Arabia as TOSSD totalled USD 6 billion, marking a 4% increase compared with the previous year. Saudi Arabia’s TOSSD activities mostly targeted SDG 17 (partnerships for the Goals), SDG 1 (no poverty) and SDG 4 (quality education). Activity-level data on TOSSD by recipient are available at: https://tossd.online.
Several institutions manage Saudi Arabia’s development co-operation. The Ministry of Finance and the SFD manage and disburse its bilateral co-operation. The SFD was established in 1974 and provides soft concessional loans – which are not geographically restricted – directly to partner country governments to finance development projects across sectors. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs oversees Saudia Arabia’s multilateral contributions. Humanitarian assistance is managed by KSRelief, established in 2015. KSRelief provides emergency relief and humanitarian support in response to crises and natural disasters.
The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development placed a renewed emphasis on strengthening the effectiveness of all forms of development co-operation by upholding and elevating the Effectiveness Principles. Adherence to these principles is measured through the partner country-led monitoring exercise of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation. Saudi Arabia participated in the 2023-2026 monitoring round through its reporting to one partner country, Yemen. Its results can be found here.
Access the full list of development co-operation providers at: Development Co-operation Profiles.
Saudi Fund for Development: https://www.sfd.gov.sa.
King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief): https://www.ksrelief.org.
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance: https://www.mof.gov.sa/en/Pages/default.aspx.
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030: https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/en.
Saudi Aid Platform: https://data.ksrelief.org/en.
Saudi Arabia has been a Participant of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) since 2016.
Saudi Arabia has been reporting to the OECD since 1966 and has been reporting activity-level data since 2018.
Saudi Arabia participated as an observer in a DAC statistical review in 2018 and the DAC Peer Review of the United Kingdom in 2020.
Saudi Arabia is an Adherent to the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. Learn more about OECD legal instruments and DAC Recommendations.
Saudi Arabia participated as observer in the DAC Peer Review of the United Kingdom in 2020.
The Saudi Fund for Development is a member of the Arab Coordination Group. In this context, it regularly participates in the Arab-DAC Dialogues on Development.
The methodological notes provide further details on the definitions and statistical methodologies applied, including the grant-equivalent methodology, core and earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations, country programmable aid, channels of delivery, bilateral ODA unspecified/unallocated, bilateral allocable ODA, the gender equality policy marker, and the environment markers.
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← 1. DAC members adopted the grant-equivalent methodology starting from their reporting of 2018 data as a more accurate way to count the donor effort in development loans. See the methodological notes for further details.
← 2. Aid per person in extreme poverty is calculated by dividing net ODA (bilateral and imputed multilateral) by the population in extreme poverty in each country. It estimates how much ODA each person in extreme poverty would receive if total ODA was divided evenly among the extreme poor. This metric does not measure the amount of ODA actually received by each person in extreme poverty, nor does it measure how much ODA goes to poverty reduction. It instead highlights patterns in total ODA allocations relative to the number of people living in extreme poverty in each country. Group averages are calculated based on a weighted average of aid per person in extreme poverty and the number of people in extreme poverty for each country in the group. See the methodological notes for further details.