Development Co‑operation Profiles: Saudi Arabia
Table of contents
The government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest provider of official development assistance (ODA) in the Gulf region in terms of volume, with a commitment to being a global leader in sustainable development. Saudi Arabia held the presidency of the G20 in 2020 and advanced the financing for sustainable development agenda by promoting a voluntary, integrated Financing for Sustainable Development Framework to mobilise more financial resources and promote development effectiveness and G20 co-operation, including on improving policy coherence. Saudi Arabia’s development co-operation is guided by its foreign policy and its principles to assist partner countries. Saudi Arabia provided USD 5.2 billion of ODA in 2023, representing 0.51% of gross national income (GNI).
This profile presents verified data on development assistance allocation. See the Development Co-operation Profiles.
Saudi Arabia is currently working to deliver a national development co-operation strategy aligned with its Vision 2030 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The two main players are the Saudi Fund for Development and the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief). For more information, see the Institutional set-up section. The Saudi Fund for Development provides soft loans, which are not geographically restricted, and deals directly with partner country governments to finance priority development projects. It prioritises projects in least developed and low-income countries. Humanitarian assistance forms an important part of Saudi Arabia’s overall ODA and is managed by KSRelief.
Saudi Arabia is also engaged in the multilateral development system, including through the Islamic Development Bank, United Nations (UN) organisations and the World Bank.
Saudi Arabia provided USD 5.2 billion of ODA in 2023, representing 0.51% of GNI.1 This was a decrease of 21% in real terms in volume and in the share of GNI compared to 0.59% 2022. In 2023, Saudi Arabia did not meet international commitment to achieve a 0.7% ODA/GNI ratio. Within Saudi Arabia’s ODA portfolio in 2023, 92.4% was provided in the form of grants and 7.6% in the form of non-grants.2
Note: This table only includes information about ODA data-related DAC Recommendations. ODA: official development assistance; GNI: gross national income.
Saudi Arabia provided most of its ODA bilaterally in 2023. Gross bilateral ODA was 94% of total ODA disbursements, with 1.8% channelled through multilateral organisations (earmarked contributions).
In 2023, Saudi Arabia provided USD 438.2 million of gross ODA to the multilateral system, a fall of 29.4% in real terms from 2022. Of this, USD 340.7 million was core multilateral ODA (6% of total ODA), while USD 97.5 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 93.4% of Saudi Arabia’s non-core contributions and 6.6% was programmatic funding (to pooled funds and specific‑purpose programmes and funds).
The UN system received 26.8% of Saudi Arabia’s contributions to multilateral organisations, mainly through earmarked contributions, which represented USD 83.5 million (71%). Out of a total volume of USD 117.6 million to the UN system, the top three UN recipients of Saudi Arabia’s support (core and earmarked contributions) were the UN Secretariat (USD 26.1 million), the UN Refugee Agency (USD 25.8 million) and the World Food Programme (USD 17.2 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 2023, 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 21.5% in real terms from 2022.
In 2023, country programmable aid amounted to USD 4.7 billion, or 87.8% of Saudi Arabia’s gross bilateral ODA, compared to the non-DAC country average of 37.7%.
In 2023, Saudi Arabia channelled its bilateral ODA mainly through public sector.
In 2023, civil society organisations (CSOs) received USD 231.9 million of gross bilateral ODA, of which 65.9% was directed to developing country-based CSOs. Overall, 4.3% of gross bilateral ODA was channelled through CSOs to implement projects initiated by the donor (earmarked funding). From 2022 to 2023, the combined core and earmarked contributions for CSOs increased as a share of bilateral ODA, from 2.4% to 4.3%. Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid.
In 2023, Saudi Arabia’s bilateral ODA primarily focused on Asia (excluding the Middle East). USD 2.3 billion was allocated to Asia (excluding the Middle East) and USD 1.7 billion to the Middle East, accounting respectively for 44% and 31.6% of gross bilateral ODA. USD 1.1 billion was allocated to countries in Africa. The Middle East was the main regional recipient of Saudi Arabia’s earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations.
In 2023, 83.4% 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 3.1%.
In 2023, Saudi Arabia allocated 0.19% of its GNI to the least developed countries (LDCs). Saudi Arabia allocated the highest share of gross bilateral ODA (53.8%) to lower middle-income countries in 2023, noting that 3.1% was unallocated by income group. LDCs received 36.8% of Saudi Arabia’s gross bilateral ODA (2 billion). Additionally, Saudi Arabia allocated 4.2% of gross bilateral ODA to land-locked developing countries in 2023, equal to USD 225.7 million.
Support to contexts with high and extreme fragility was USD 4.1 billion in 2023, representing 77.7% of Saudi Arabia’s gross bilateral ODA. Four per cent of this ODA was provided in the form of humanitarian assistance, a decrease from 7.8% in 2022, while 1.3% was allocated to peace, a decrease from 4.1% in 2022. One per cent of gross bilateral ODA went to conflict prevention, a subset of contributions to peace, representing a decrease from 3.9% in 2022. Learn more about the OECD States of Fragility platform.
In 2023, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s bilateral ODA was allocated to general budget support (under other sectors), with USD 3.9 billion. Other Investments under other sectors included administrative costs of donors (USD 156.2 million), and development food assistance (USD 85.2 million). ODA for social infrastructure and services totalled USD 1.3 billion, with a focus on health and population (USD 549.3 million). Economic infrastructure and services amounted to USD 624.8 million (9% of bilateral ODA). Earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations focused also on social sectors and macro sectors in 2023.
Saudi Arabia committed USD 1 million of ODA to end violence against women on average per year in 2022-23.
Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance and the DAC Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation in Development Co-operation, and by exploring the dashboard on DAC members’ development finance for gender equality.
In 2023, Saudi Arabia also:
Allocated 2.4% of its bilateral ODA (USD 130.6 million) to core poverty-reducing sectors as defined by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1.a.1, which captures grants to basic social services (basic health and education, water supply and sanitation, multisector aid for basic social services) and development food aid.
Committed USD 736 million (25.5% of its bilateral allocable ODA) to promote aid for trade and improve developing countries’ trade performance and integration into the world economy in 2023.
The 4th global monitoring round of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) (2023-26) is underway, and Saudi Arabia is participating in the exercise as a development partner. Information on partner countries’ participation, progress and results, including a mid-term observations brief, is available at the Global Dashboard.
Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) is an international statistical standard that monitors and increases transparency of all official and officially supported resources for financing the SDGs in developing countries, as well as for addressing global challenges. In 2023, activities reported by Saudi Arabia as TOSSD totalled USD 5.7 billion, down from USD 6.6 billion in 2022. Saudi Arabia’s TOSSD activities mostly targeted SDG 17 (partnerships for the Goals), SDG 4 (quality education) and SDG 1 (no poverty). Activity-level data on TOSSD by recipient are available at: https://tossd.online.
Saudi Arabia’s development co-operation is shared between two key institutions: the Saudi Fund for Development, established in 1974, which provides development aid in the form of soft loans; and the KSRelief, established in 2015, which provides humanitarian assistance. In addition, the Ministry of Finance manages bilateral aid, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has responsibility for Saudi Arabia’s contributions to multilateral institutions. A range of other domestic stakeholders also disburses ODA.
Access the full list of providers at this link: 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 Foreign Affairs: https://www.mofa.gov.sa/sites/mofaen/pages/default.aspx
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance: https://www.mof.gov.sa/en/Pages/default.aspx
Saudi Fund for Development Annual Report 2023: https://www.sfd.gov.sa/sites/default/files/annual-report-pdfs/Annual%20report%20final%20EN_0.pdf
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030: https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/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 Fund for Development is a member of the Arab Coordination Group. In this context, it participates in regular 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. Non-grants include sovereign loans, multilateral loans, equity investment and loans to the private sector.