Abstract
Sustainability advocates for a universally shared common vision of progress towards a society that is just, safe and sustainable for humanity. Beyond environmental protection, the concept recognizes the urgent need to improve life quality through strategies that build socio-economic growth and address a wide range of cross cutting issues. While consensus abound that a more sustainable society serves everyone, opinions on what sustainability means and how it can be achieved are diverse. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), through the 2030 Vision and the 2020 National Transformation Program (NTP) outlines an agenda for a more balanced growth and socio-economic development. The extent to which the vision systematically aligns with sustainability principles, however, remains unexplored. This research is a maiden attempt to investigate how much sustainability substance is in the 2030 Vision and the NTP of Saudi Arabia. The Sustainable Society Index (SSI) has been employed to examine the 2030 Vision and the NTP to understand the Kingdom’s commitment to building resilient, inclusive and sustainable societies. The vision and NTP texts were matched against five broad measures and 22 sub-measures of the SSI to identity the points of convergence. While both the 2030 Vision and the NTP align with the SSI measures in some respect, the goals and objectives are, at best, a reflection of the needs, aspirations and context of Saudi Arabia. The paper concludes that the success of the 2030 Vision rests on the active involvement and empowerment of relevant stakeholders at all levels as well as the development of comprehensive assessment mechanisms based on which to measure progress towards sustainability.
Highlights
Sustainability is a catchphrase around which international and national development discourses continue to grow
The choice of Sustainable Society Index (SSI) as an assessment framework was motivated by the fact that it blends a range of social, economic and environmental factors, all of which are important in the multi-dimensional interpretation of the concept of sustainability
It is clear that sustainability is an enormously broad concept spanning the environmental, economic and social aspects of society
Summary
Sustainability is a catchphrase around which international and national development discourses continue to grow. The Saudi government, in efforts to put the country on the path to sustainable economic growth and development has developed the Vision 2030 and the 2020 National Transformation Program (NTP) Together, these strategic plans set far-reaching goals and objectives to transform the country to one that is sustainable, diverse and at the center of international trade [23,24]. The choice of SSI as an assessment framework was motivated by the fact that it blends a range of social, economic and environmental factors, all of which are important in the multi-dimensional interpretation of the concept of sustainability It has since 2006 undergone methodological refinement resulting in the development of a set of measures that are both statistically and conceptually sound [25,26]. It has been variously employed as a benchmarking instrument for national level sustainability assessment [27,28,29]
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