Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz, the President of the Arab Gulf Fund for the United Nations Development (AGFUND), announced here on Sunday a new initiative to set up an Arab-African Fund, which will engage in granting smaller loans. He made this announcement in a speech at the opening ceremony of a regional conference on "smaller loans for the Middle East and Africa." The goal of the initiative is to activate the necessary tools for seeking this type of loans in Arab and African regions, he said. Prince Talal called on Arab leaders and the Secretary General of the Arab League to include the issue of combating poverty in the agenda of the next Arab summit as well as the African Union summit. He said that he still dreams of generalizing the idea of banks for the poor in the Arab and African world, and expressed optimism that this would be welcomed and given great due attention by all Arab governments.
