ABSTRACT
The nature of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as an organisation has kept its members from channelling their assistance to developing countries through a single, large, collective institution. The result has been the disbursement of the bulk of OPEC’s aid through bilateral channels, other regional channels, and to a lesser extent international channels. Granting aid to another country is basically a political decision and as such, therefore, a nation’s aid programme is first and foremost a tool of its foreign policy. The historical record of foreign aid provided by traditional donors has amply proved this point. The aid policies of the Arab members of OPEC have been motivated first and foremost by their security, politico-ideological and economic objectives, both at the level of individual Arab countries and at a Pan-Arab level. As such, therefore, Arab aid has been deeply affected by intra-Arab politics, including deep-rooted political and ideological divergences and conflicts of interest among the Arab countries.
