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26 July 2009
“The United States came in 19th on the list,” the report said.
Saudi Arabia has been ranked as “the largest international donor to humanitarian appeals” when measured as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). The Kingdom gave 0.19 per cent of the value of its economy to humanitarian funding abroad. This is large in comparison to the US, which spent 0.02 per cent of its GDP on humanitarian aid in 2008.
“The UN office in Riyadh commends the nation for its solidarity with fellow countries, and stands ready to continue this agenda through our cooperation programmes and initiatives in the Kingdom and abroad,” said Riyad Musa, the UN’s resident coordinator in the kingdom.
He said that the rise of Saudi Arabia as the world’s top humanitarian donor “is a great success and shows the strong commitments of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz to achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals”.
The report said the kingdom not only led humanitarian donors as a percentage of GDP when compared to the US, but also in comparison to the more generous European countries, such as Sweden (0.14 per cent) and Norway (0.13 per cent).
It said that many small European countries, with large and generally affluent populations, were also part of the lead countries by GDP.
The United Nations has announced that it is running a record funding-shortfall of $4.8 billion for its aid operations in 16 crisis-ridden countries, largely because of the global economic downturn that has disproportionately affected the impoverished in the developing world.
The UN says it has received less than half of the $9.5 billion it needs to carry out humanitarian operations this year.
Calling on nations to render urgent support, the UN said that the number of people needing help this year was 43 million compared to 28 million last year. As a consequence, more money is needed to care for them. The United Nations says it requires $1.5 billion, or 19 per cent, more money this year to maintain its operations.
John Holmes, the top UN humanitarian official, has been quoted as saying in the report that “the global recession itself is having an effect on the number of people in need”.
He said that more people need assistance in the Palestinian territories because of the conflict with Israel early this year.
