Saudi Arabia will invest about $25 billion in Africa by the end of the decade as part of its Vision 2030 plan to overhaul its economy, Saudi Press Agency reports.
This comes as African leaders gather in the city of Riyadh for the first Saud-Africa Summit which started on Friday.
More than 50 deals and preliminary agreements were signed during the summit in various fields including tourism, energy, finance, mining and logistics, SPA said.
Nigeria, Africa's largest economy is among countries that sealed deals with Saudi Arabia during the summit.
The Nigerian government said the agreements include channeling Saudi Arabian investments to the West African country's oil refineries to revamp them. President Bola Tinubu assured investors of safety of their investments in his country.
Leaders who attending the summit include presidents and prime ministers prime ministers with each calling calling for more Saudi investments and economic ties at both bilateral and multilateral levels.
Saudi exports to the continent worth $10 billion will be financed and insured through 2030, and the Saudi Fund for Development will finance development projects worth about $5 billion in the same time frame, the Saudi News Agency added.
Gaza war
Leaders also spoke about the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza with the Saudi Arabia's crown prince calling for an end to the war, a stance later echoed in a declaration with African leaders attending the summit.
"We condemn what the Gaza Strip is facing from military assault, targeting of civilians, the violations of international law by the Israeli occupation authorities," Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said during the African-Saudi summit in the kingdom's capital.
"We stress on the need to stop this war and the forced displacement of Palestinians," he added.
Israeli air strikes hit three Gaza hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 27 people.
Palestinian officials said more than 11,000 Gaza residents have been killed, about 70% of them women and children, in air and artillery strikes, with many others wounded.
Israel says 1,400 people were killed by Hamas in Israel, mostly civilians, and about 240 were taken hostage on Oct. 7, while 39 soldiers have been killed in combat since.
Aid organisations
Leaders attending the African-Saudi summit in a joint declaration said military operations in the occupied Palestinian territories needed to stop and civilians must be protected.
The leaders "stressed the need to end the real cause of the conflict represented by the Israeli occupation," calling for intensified efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a two-state solution "to guarantee the Palestinian people their right to establish their independent state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital."
They said the international community must play an important role in pressuring Israel to "stop Israeli attacks and the forced displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip," which it called "a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and international laws."
The African-Saudi leaders, in the "Riyadh Declaration", called for relief organizations, including the United Nations Palestinian refugees agency UNRWA, to be supported in their efforts.
