![Quality of Life Program (Saudi Arabia) Quality of Life Program (Saudi Arabia)](/modules/owlapps_apps/img/nopic.jpg)
The Quality of Life Program (QOLP) is one of the Saudi Vision 2030 Realization Programs. It was launched in the middle of 2018 with the strategic aim of improving the ‘lifestyle’ and ‘liveability’ of individuals, families, and communities. The program hopes to achieve its goals by transforming cities by supporting and creating more choices that foster participation in environmental, cultural, social, entertaining, sporting, and other activities. According to the program, these activities are aiming to increase the wellbeing of Saudi Arabia's Populus and create additional jobs for people, diversifying the economy, and improving the overall status of Saudi cities to be "among the world's best cities".
The liveability aims of the QOLP aim to increase the basic standards of living, which include infrastructure and basic services, including:
The lifestyle aims of the QOLP aim to represent the group of alternatives that support community participation and life enjoyment, with recreational activities for citizens to enjoy, such as:
The program has developed and measures extensive indicators that fall directly and indirectly within the general concept of quality of life. The program today does not include initiatives in the health sector in Saudi Arabia, but its initiatives affect the sector indirectly by providing options and enabling an overall healthy lifestyle.
Quality of life is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns".
The concept is very broad and cross-cutting and can be defined in many terms. To help build our perception, the QOLP categorizes their efforts into the lifestyle and liveability spheres of work. This main categorization was determined after extensive analysis of leading global indexes which measure various aspects of quality of life. Indexes evaluated included:
The Quality of Life Program aspires to make Saudi Arabia one of the best places to live in the world. It aims to achieve its objectives by enabling the necessary transformational projects in parallel with the on-going government scope to position at least three Saudi cities in the best 100 cities in the world by 2030, and works with the necessary stakeholders to achieve this ambition.
All government sectors are working at varying levels to improve the quality of life in the Kingdom according to their scope and field. There are areas that fall directly under the QOLP, and others whose strategic indicators are measured periodically by the QOLP, although they do not fall directly within the scope of the program.
Some of the QOLP's KPIs include: Number of Saudi cities in the top 100 liveable cities in the world, number of restaurants and cafes, percentage of shopping malls’ area (square meter per individual), amount of green spaces per capita, number of hobby clubs, percentage of people practicing sports, and number of places for practicing sports.
It is acknowledged, that all government projects outside of the current mandate of the QOLP does in fact positively contribute to the overall enhancement of the quality of life in the country. Projects such as King Salman Park, Green Riyadh, the Red Sea Development Project and Amaala, will contribute to improving the quality of life inside the Kingdom, even though they are not part of the QOLP.
The Program currently has nine strategic pillars to achieve its ambitious goals:
Quality of Life program continues to follow up on the progress of its initiatives to achieve the strategic goals of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 assigned to the program, by setting strategic indicators and implementing projects and initiatives. Performance cards are built for each initiative, including the initiative's scope, description, implementation date, targeted administrative areas, and final outputs to measure its success. Quality of Life program works to overcome the obstacles facing the stakeholders, also it follows up the implementation, and communicates with the supporting and executive entities, to ensure the efficiency of implementing the initiatives in accordance with the goals set by the Kingdom's Vision 2030.
Given the QOL Program main objective of providing more alternatives within Saudi Arabia, here are some of its recent achievements:
One of the main achievements of the Quality of Life program was the launch of the Hobbies Sector in the Kingdom. Several initiatives related to the creation of this new sector included: establishing a regulatory framework, hobby clubs licensing, digital enablement, content creation, and awareness campaigns supporting on how to practice in a hobby either individually or within a community positively contributes to quality of life. The Hobby Clubs Association (Hawi) and its bylaws were approved, with the membership of 11 government agencies, to become the entity responsible for establishing and enabling hobby clubs governed by the Quality of Life Program Centre. “Hawi” is the organizational entity for the establishment and registration of hobby clubs in the Kingdom for citizens and residents. Its main aim is to build communities and create a national network revolving around hobbies. The organization also focuses on transferring experiences and international best practices to these clubs and raising awareness of their importance. The program launched the electronic platform "Hawi" https://hawi.gov.sa/ to enable the hobbies sector digitally. “Hawi” Association aims to contribute in creating an incubating environment for hobby groups, offering operational and financial support. Too, raising awareness of the importance of practicing and developing hobbies to stimulate creative thinking and community building, providing facilities in order to build a vibrant society, and activating community partnerships with local, regional and international institutions. In addition to holding seminars, lectures, and training courses related to hobbies inside and outside the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and exchanging experiences with local and international institutions. Among the services provided by “Hawi” platform to the public are the establishment of hobby clubs, membership registration, management of hobby club members and their activities, applying support requests, clarifying the regulations governing the sector, in addition to booking incubators and facilities, and conducting training courses.
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