Saudi Arabian Aid
Saudi Arabian bilateral assistance has been selected as a case study here for two reasons, Firstly, because of its position as the largest contributor among OPEC countries. Secondly, the Bangladesh-Saudi relations typifies the way in which Islamic ideology blends with political and economic considerations of development assistance. In order to understand this phenomena better, we shall first of all review the current position which Saudi Arabia occupies in world politics and how it affects it's relation with the developing countries and then proceed to review it in the South Asian context, with particular reference to Bangladesh.
Three important facts account for the importance of Saudi Arabia in the global arena, the first is the size and strategic location of Saudi Arabia be- tween the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf, which borders on a number of small weak Arab oil sheikhdoms. The second fact is that Saudi Arabia controls huge oil reserves, and this together with the first point helps to make Saudi Arabia strategically very important for