Advisor at the Royal Court and Supervisor General of King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief) Dr. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Rabeeah yesterday headed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's delegation participating in the European Humanitarian Forum in the Belgian capital Brussels with the participation of heads of donor countries and UN organizations. The supervisor general, on the sidelines of the forum, participated in a ministerial meeting for the biggest 10 donors, during which participants discussed challenges facing the international humanitarian action due to the increasing gap between financial resources and humanitarian needs, and what is facing humanitarian action of challenges as a result of increasing prices of grains due to the events in Ukraine, as well as the economic challenges facing the world due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Meanwhile, Dr. Al-Rabeeah, on the sidelines of the forum, held several meetings with each of Assistant Director General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations at the European Commission Michael Köhler, Chair of the Delegation for relations with the Arab Peninsula at the European Parliament Hannah Neumann, Special Envoy for Famine Prevention and Humanitarian Affairs at the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Nick Dyer, Head of the Department for UN Policy, Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs Carl Skau, and Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming at USAID Isobel Coleman, in the presence of Saudi Ambassador to EU Eng. Saad bin Mohammed Al-Arifi. During the meetings, Dr. Al-Rabeeah reviewed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's leading role in supporting humanitarian needs, especially that Saudi Arabia, through KSrelief, works in 79 countries around the world. The meetings also went over means to address the gap between resources and humanitarian needs. The supervisor general also discussed multiple global crises, noting that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia greatly contributes to supporting the humanitarian action and shares concern with world countries regarding what some countries of big needs face of dire needs as a result of hikes in food prices and their negative impacts on these societies. The meetings also went over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's presidency of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in mid-2022, which embodies Saudi Arabia's pivotal role in humanitarian work and its high ability to administrate it with full efficiency.
