This year it became official -- there is poverty in Saudi Arabia.
Following a sudden visit by Crown Prince Abdullah to a Riyadh slum during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the government announced a national strategy to combat poverty, centered on creating jobs and better housing for the underprivileged.
For most people in this vast desert land which sits on the world's biggest oil reserves, the revelation of poverty in their midst was a shock.
But it was long overdue recognition for those who missed out on the tafra, the great leap in the 1970s when oil wealth allowed the government to provide modern air-conditioned housing and state jobs in a new, developing country for the majority.
"Eighty years ago my grandfather came from Taif in the west to live in this Riyadh neighborhood," said government employee Mohamed, touring the poor district of Shmeisi.
"During the tafra in the 1970s the state gave him a house in a new neighborhood. These people came afterwards," he said, surveying the poor Saudis filling the alleyways.
Stark contrast
The area is a dusty warren of traditional mud brick houses where most of the residents are migrants from the poor mountainous regions in Saudi Arabia's far south.
Rubbish lies in the streets and the walls are covered in graffiti. It is reminiscent of the slum districts in neighboring Egypt and Iraq. The difference here is the luxury that so many other citizens are accustomed to, said Ibrahim, a 20-year-old shop assistant.
"We see all the money they have while we have nothing here," he said, adding that he couldn't afford to complete his high school studies. "When my dad retired, I had to leave school to support the family, which is 14 people."
It was down this road that the Crown Prince -- heir to the throne of an absolute monarchy that defines the country by its own family name -- walked almost a year ago.
"It was strange. He came down this street and asked about us. For 15 years I saw no development here. To be honest I don't notice any difference now," Ibrahim added.
Saudi commentators have said poverty could provide more foot soldiers for militant Islam in the kingdom, where 15 of the 19 suicide hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on US cities came from.
Hope and charity
Local charities provide food and clothes and sometimes pay rent, and it is on such charity, experts say, that the government is relying to lift these Saudis out of poverty.
"Now the talk is that maybe charity work will do, but charities won't eradicate poverty," said economist Ihsan Bu-Hulaiga. "We need to take care of all Saudis."
The national poverty strategy envisions rich businessmen and Saudi princes, who number in the thousands, coughing up cash for new residential areas to rehouse the poor.
As the government takes measures to stop charity money finding its way to militant Islamic causes abroad, commentators have called for charity to begin at home.
Financial analyst Bishr Bakheet said this was a stop-gap solution which avoided taking hard decisions on modernizing an economy based on oil, state hand-outs and foreign labor.
The economy is not generating enough jobs to allow poorer sectors to lift themselves out of poverty because of a failure to tackle dependency on oil income and cheap foreign laborers, who make up six million of a 23 million population, he said.
Analysts say deprived Saudi youth could fall prey to Islamic militancy, which the state has acknowledged as a Saudi problem.
A hike in oil prices which is set to wipe out a projected budget deficit for this year will only put off the necessary reforms, Bakheet said.
Progress in gas sector development, privatization and religious tourism, the main diversification hopes, has been slow.
Per capita income has been falling over the last 20 years because of gradually falling oil prices and a high birth rate, which Saudi families are not being encouraged to reduce.
Saudi per capita national income in the early 1980s matched that of the US at about US$28,000, but was less than US$7,500 in 2001, according to US government figures.
Government statistics for 2000 put the number of the population under 15 at 45 percent and under-30s at 72 percent.
Political paralysis
Experts lament a lack of official statistics and definitions for unemployment and poverty, as well as details on government budgets, an unpublished percentage of which maintains the Saudi royals.
The government, advised by a decade-old unelected parliament, levies no taxes on Saudi citizens or expatriates. Analysts estimate unemployment among Saudis at 12 percent.
Analysts say decision-making is paralyzed in the country, racked by an unresolved stand-off between political reformers and religious hardliners over the country's future. They say many ministers have limited room to maneuver.
In Shmeisi, it is not long-term reforms, but the flutter of national excitement over oil prices that the poor have fixed on.
"Oil prices are high, this is good!" said Ibrahim al-Dweishy, who has a job in local radio.
"The Ministry of Labor has sent people round to take our names and survey the district. They say we'll get new houses," he added, before scuttling off to the mosque to catch evening prayers.
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