Iraq has been a more problematic recipient of aid from the Gulf monarchies, mostly due to Kuwait’s insistence that the post-2003 Iraqi government eventually repays about $16 billion of loans — most of which were provided to Saddam Hussein’s government by Kuwaiti banks prior to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Nevertheless, in its keenness to head off Iranian encroachment in Iraq, Saudi Arabia’s assistance has been very generous, ranging from reconstruction projects to the pledging of billions of dollars of export guarantees and the providing of massive soft loans. The UAE’s assistance to Iraq has perhaps been even greater, with several large donations having been made since 2005, including a gift of $215 million for the reconstruction effort,[323] and the UAE Armed Forces’ supplying of helicopters and other equipment for the new Iraqi military.[324] In summer 2008 the UAE announced that it would also scrap all of Iraq’s outstanding debts to the UAE — amounting to some $7 billion — so as to ‘help alleviate the economic burdens endured by the brotherly Iraqi people’.[325]
Many East African countries have benefited from Gulf ODA: originally those with substantial Arab or Muslim populations, but more recently some others have begun to receive assistance. The UAE has been dispensing aid to Somalia since the early 1990s, and in 2008 began supplying medicines and foodstuffs to the Sudan.[326] Saudi Arabia has followed a similar path, having allocated $10 million in aid to the Horn of Africa countries through the World Food Programme and with ruling family member Al-Waleed bin Talal Al-Saud having personally provided a further $1 million of aid, specifically to help Kenya. The latter gift prompted the World Food Programme’s Executive Director to claim ‘… it is exactly the kind of support that these desperate people deserve from both private donors and governments’.[327] Qatar is also getting involved, having recently paid for the reconstruction of the Asmara International Stadium in Eritrea and the building of a new ‘Qatari-Eritrean Hall of Friendship’ as part of the complex.[328] Although these sums and assistance packages are far smaller than those currently being channelled to the Arab states, it is likely that more Gulf ODA will be sent to East Africa as security in the region deteriorates and it remains open to pirates and terror groups that may target Gulf interests.
For many years South Asian states — primarily India and Pakistan — have received generous aid from the Gulf monarchies, not least due to their shared economic histories and labour migration flows. But over the last decade the value of aid has dramatically increased, mainly as a response to the perceived threat of al-Qaeda and other Afghanistan and Pakistan-based organisations to the region’s security. After the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, Saudi Arabia immediately donated $3 million to Pakistan and promised a further $570 million in follow-up assistance — the largest package provided by any donor state. A new organisation was set up — the Saudi Public Assistance for Pakistan Earthquake Victims — which set about constructing over 4,000 new houses at a cost of $17 million for some of the homeless Pakistanis.[329] More recently, following the 2010 floods in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia has again been the primary donor to Pakistan’s relief efforts, supplying more than $360 million in aid and helping to build two new hospitals.[330] Over the same period it is believed that Saudi Arabia provided Afghanistan with over $200 million in aid. Both Kuwait and the UAE pledged $100 million to Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake,[331] and their collective aid efforts to Afghanistan also amount to several hundred million dollars. Since 9/11 the UAE Red Crescent Society has supplied over $40 million, with a further $30 million having been supplied by other Abu Dhabi-based groups.[332] This has been used to construct a large hospital, six clinics, a public library, eleven schools and even a 6,000 student capacity Zayed University of Afghanistan. A Zayed City is also being built to house over 2000 displaced persons,[333] again named after Abu Dhabi’s late ruler.
Development aid has been channelled into other parts of Asia too, especially in countries with either a predominantly Muslim population or a labour supplying relationship with the Gulf monarchies. Although Gulf aid was slow to reach Indonesia and elsewhere in East Asia following the 2004 tsunami, with Saudi Arabia’s response being described as ‘shameful’ by Al-Jazeera and with Kuwait’s Al-Qabas newspaper urging its government ‘to give them more as we are rich’,[334] the same mistake is unlikely to be made again. Qatar, for example, now has a new state-sponsored charity — Reach Out to Asia — specifically to provide aid and educational outreach to poorer parts of South East Asia. Chaired by one of the emir’s daughters, its significance has been described as ‘not being lost on Qatar’s large population of South East Asian migrant workers’.[335] The UAE is being similarly proactive, with its aid programme now reaching as far as Mongolia. Commissioned by the new Mongolia-based Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan Charitable and Humanitarian Foundation and supervised by a lesser member of the Abu Dhabi ruling family, a complex containing housing, schools, mosques, and healthcare facilities is being built at a cost of about $1 million. Significantly, the project has been described as being for ‘…the Mongolian Muslims living in Olgiy… situated in the extreme west of Mongolia and sharing borders with China and Russia’.[336]
Surprising to many, Gulf ODA has also played a major role in Europe, or more specifically the development of Muslim communities in Eastern Europe. Most notable has been the substantial aid that has flowed into Kosovo and other parts of the Balkans since the conflicts of the late 1990s. The government-backed Saudi Joint Committee for the Relief of Kosovo spent $5 million funding housing projects and providing food and medical supplies; it also paid for the building of mosques and the setting up of ‘religious programmes’,[337] while the Saudi Red Crescent Society despatched medical volunteers to the various refugee camps.[338] The UAE has been equally if not more active in Kosovo, with its total aid programme now believed to have totalled some $30 million. The Muhammad bin Rashid Charitable and Humanitarian Establishment — named after the current ruler of Dubai — ploughed several million dollars into the Kosovo relief effort, and in 1999 the UAE’s terrestrial TV stations participated in a charity telethon. The event raised $15 million and then Muhammad doubled this sum, although not anonymously. The money was used to build over fifty new mosques in Kosovo in 2000.[339] Upon visiting Dubai in 2009 to take part in a university graduation ceremony, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to this and other Dubai development assistance in the presence of Muhammad by stating that the ‘emirate is now on a par with New York, London, and Paris’ and ‘praising the humanitarian and charitable campaigns launched by the wise leadership to help people around the world realise the concept of wealth-sharing and achieve social equality among peoples in various communities, especially the poor’.[340]
Active neutrality: peacekeeping and mediation
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17. Davidson, Christopher M.,
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27. Kamrava, Mehran, ‘Royal Factionalism and Political Liberalization in Qatar’ in
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31. Wilson, Graeme,