The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has confirmed that it has developed a system of social protection aimed at protecting low income families and is working to build a comprehensive and effective system in cooperation among the concerned government agencies. It pointed out that this system gives priority to eradicating poverty and raising the standard of living within three main areas including social assistance, social insurance and labor market programs. This came in a speech delivered by the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations, Dr. Khalid Al-Manzalawi in the general debate at the 57th session of the UN Commission for Social Development (CSocD). He said "The Kingdom is currently undertaking several economic reforms to reduce the fiscal deficit, stimulate non-oil revenues, reduce subsidies and tax legislation." Dr. Al-Manzalawi further said that poverty is one of the most important global problems that have made all countries of the world trying to deal with it to the extent that the UN has even made the poverty problem as one of its priorities, developing 17 development programs that aim to lift societies out of poverty.
