Assaf said "It has to be mentioned that Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries that have fulfilled the UN target for official development assistance (ODA). While the difficult global economic environment has increased the pressure on official development assistance resources elsewhere, Saudi Arabia has continued to provide significant amount of assistance that has already exceeded One percent of GDP. I would like now to turn to a subject that I am sure you will find interesting. At the Energy Summit held In June of 2008 in Jeddah, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz launched his initiative of 'Energy for the Poor'. Usually when experts talk about energy issues and challenges, it is often about large scale projects and the requirements of major markets, and hardly any attention to the need of the poor. Since then we worked very closely with international and regional financial and development institutions, including the World Bank Group, OFID (the OPEC Fund), The Arab Bank for Development in Africa(BADIA) and the Saudi Fund for Development to implement the initiative. We already identified and provided financing for a good number of projects, mainly in Africa. The objective is to provide the appropriate source of energy particularly in rural areas. These sources range from sophisticated power grids to non-conventional low cost energy for cooking lighting. There is no bias toward any source of energy. Cost effectiveness and sustainability are important for social well-being and development. As the lack of the right logistics in rural areas makes it often prohibitive to any kind of development, one of the objectives is to help also in providing the right infrastructure, including highways, access to water and irrigation systems." --MORE
