Achieving sustainable development by enhancing the quality of institutions in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Economic and human development have been central to all of Saudi Arabia’s strategic plans since 1970, yet the country has not managed to achieve a sustainable rate of development. This study analyzes the most significant governmental dimensions in Saudi Arabia’s economic and human development. This research focuses on helping decision-makers to accomplish and sustain the outcomes of the country’s specific development plans (e.g., Vision 2030). The study uses data collected in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 1996 and 2017 and cubic regression analysis to answer the research questions: Is there a relationship between good governance practices and economic development (i.e., economic growth and human development) in Saudi Arabia? Which good governance factors are the most significant for Saudi Arabia’s economic development? The results agree with the extant literature on Saudi Arabia and other developing countries, which suggests that the Saudi government needs to augment governmental effectiveness, control corruption, and enhance its accountability levels to create and maintain an efficient and effective governing system.

Urban Growth Management in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: An Assessment of Technical Policy Instruments and Institutional Practices

“…Therefore, the hypothesis is fully rejected. This contradicts previous empirical findings for Saudi Arabia (e.g., [24,29,39,53]) which found that a lack of either skilled or trained human resources is a major challenge for urban institutions with regards to achieving sustainable urban development.…”

“…Factors such as uniformity of action, enhancing motivation, facilitating procedures, coordination of activities, and effective communication, all play an important role in determining the degree of centralization. Recent academic research has concluded that the decision-making process is still centralized in Saudi Arabia [19,53,54]. Therefore, this study suggests the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1 (H1).…”

“…Hence, the degree of centralization is most likely to influence the effectiveness of the technical policy instruments used to manage urban growth [21]. The term "degree" refers to the extent to which the decision making process is concentrated at the top level of an organization [53]. Factors such as uniformity of action, enhancing motivation, facilitating procedures, coordination of activities, and effective communication, all play an important role in determining the degree of centralization.…”