The immediacy of response to need is another aspect of King Fahd’s approach to aid that is distinctive and worthy of note. Whenever natural or man-made disasters afflict a population, whether in the Arab, the Islamic or the wider world, King Fahd’s response has been immediate. By the time the world has heard of the latest incident, the relief planes are on the tarmac at one of the Kingdom’s international airports. Whether it is an earthquake in Algeria, Egypt or India, or drought in Africa, or ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, or the suffering of the Palestinians in their occupied homeland, King Fahd issues instructions for the aid to be assembled and dispatched.

The Kingdom's weekly Council of Ministers meetings provide not only a record of the frequency and generosity of the Kingdom’s donations but also an extraordinary insight into the Kingdom’s priorities. There must be few governments where the Head of State and his cabinet spend so much time discussing the needs of peoples in foreign countries and allocating financial and material aid to meet them.

It is also the case that while the Saudi Government itself is organizing State relief, King Fahd and many others in the Kingdom add generously to the aid effort from their own resources.