The World Gate

By Ghada Alrefia

Change is an act of many small steps towards a brighter vision. The World Gate: Public Policy in Saudi Arabia introduces readers to the Saudi government's enormous reform movement since 2016. Aiming to reveal its

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Jun 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781637301067

Book preview

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my gratitude to my family and friends who have supported me throughout this journey. Further, my interviewees, my campaign supporters, and everyone who took some time to send me an encouragement note or help me finish the book.

I would like to start by thanking my mom (Waffa Jummah) for her patience and encouragement. I would have never achieved anything in this book without her support.

Thank you to my best friend Ghaydaa Abouf for being there for me every step of this journey and talking with me through many of my doubts.

Thank you to my dear friend Abrar Alhajri for her continuous support in editing the book, help me organizing my thoughts, and for being one of my interviewees.

Thank you to my two excellent editors who made this journey worth doing: Anna Kelley and Rebecca Bruckenstein.

Thank you to Professor Eric Koester for reaching out to me to be part of this fantastic creative group of writers. Thank you for influencing me to be a better educator and for your ongoing support.

Thank you to Dr. Mounira Jamjoom for honoring me to be one of my book interviewees and for her ongoing support.

Thank you to Omar Aljeraisy, who contributed to my book as an interviewee and for his amazing podcast Socrates that helps enrich my book content.

Thank you to my dear friend Hanan Al Ahmari for her ongoing support, providing me with the required references, and answering my questions and concerns.

Thank you to my beloved professor Dr. Brett Gilbert for her ongoing support and for leading me through the book’s business sector chapter.

Thank you to my dear friend/mentor Sudeep Vyapari for his ongoing support while writing this book and for helping me learn more about sustainability.

Thank you to my dear friend Noura Al Bisher for being my number one supporter. I would never have finished this book without her pep talks.

Thank you to my UNESCO Fellowes Alyaa Taha, Ali Hadad, and Hanouf Al Yami for supporting and listening to me throughout the whole book writing process.

Thank you to my dear friend Amani Alkhaimi for being there for me when I needed support and networks for the book.

Thank you to my dear friend Ahad Rummani for listening to me vent about my writing process and being there when I needed her.

Special thank you to all who supported my book campaign. I appreciate your support.

Ghaydaa Abouf, Amani Alkhiami, Tara Cunnings, Madeline Cunnings, Ahah Rummani, Abdulaziz Nasser, Gaida Altassan, Alrefiee’s family, Allaa Alrefiee, Maureen Hall, Maha AlFaidi, Nouf AlFaidi, Passant Sobhi, Jihan Alyanbuaawy, Alyaa Taha, Anfal AlMoneefi, Hana Abuhathra, Nosa Iyare, Eric Koester, Lavanya Reddy, Leif Ulstrup, Malak Albilady, Lina Elegl, Claire Krawsczyn, Hassan Khalifah, Reem Alsaedi, Shahad Subiani, Matthew Taylor, Ayse Ozturk, Abrar Alhajri, Mohammed Alhajri, Ghada Anfenan, Andrew Toczydlowski, and Sarah Alsadoun.

Note from the Author

I would like to thank you first for picking this book and reading it. I am very honored that it got your attention, and, hopefully, this book will encourage you to visit my country. And if you are a Saudi, I wish reading this book would make you proud of being part of this change.

I started writing this book while in lockdown, and it was one of the roughest periods in my life. I was settling alone in a new country due to work circumstances when the lockdown happened. I remember vividly searching for this book before Ramadan and submitting my first manuscript in Ramadan 2020. This journey was not easy, and I decided to keep going because I believe that I have something to share with others, either with national or international readers.

This journey has taught me three important lessons I am embracing for the rest of my life, and I would like to share them with you: Determination is the key to success. Reflect and observe. Walk through your fear.

My book was supposed to be published in December 2020, but in late August 2020, I fell and injured my ankle. This injury put me in bed for almost a month, and I had to postpone my book publishing date. In the two months of recovery, I had more time to reflect and observe my book ideas, which helped me come back strong for the revision rounds in late December 2020.

While writing this book, I had my day job and my podcast and other work obligations, and many times I wanted to quit, but I think determination to end this journey strong saved me. Also, dedicating time to read and search every day was vital.

Lastly, a long-term project like writing a book could be mentally hard. With everything going on worldwide and being away from home, I had to create a safe space for me with my editors and friends to talk about my doubts and fear and embrace new practices and ways of thinking to navigate stress and anxiety.

I hope you will find what you are looking for in this book, and I wish you all the best.

If there any points or notes that you think I could improve for my next edition, please email me. And if you have any thoughts or questions you would like to share with me, do not hesitate to email me.

Thank you so much! Enjoy the book, and I hope to welcome you to Saudi Arabia one day.

Ghada Alrefia

Introduction

Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab state in the region connecting three continents. It has an Arabic and Islamic dimension that has resulted in historical richness and depth and has shaped Saudi culture and identity. For many years, Saudi Arabia played a massive part in the Islamic world as a facilitator in many political issues in the region. Plus, it welcomes visitors to the Two Holy Mosques (the holy mosques in Makkah and Madinah) and the Islamic sites. This inherited Islamic responsibility holds Saudi Arabia in a high position among its neighboring countries, along with holding it accountable. Meanwhile, the considerable landmass carries different cultures within one culture, and each region contains an interesting story and mixed cultural background. Further, the power of investment and the oil industry history make it an attractive place for trade with a lot of future opportunities.

The current Saudi Arabia, referred to as the third Saudi State, has faced different changes in multiple aspects for the past ninety years. Besides the political changes in the state, the oil discovery in 1938 in the East region, the economy booming of 1969 until 1980, and, most importantly, the Grand Mosque seizure in 1979, all reflect on many phases of Saudi Arabia’s history socially, culturally, and economically.¹, ², ³ Different features of Saudi Arabia were hidden and limited due to many factors. Thus, a lack of information about Saudi led to the formation of a stereotypical picture worldwide, which was vague, mysterious, unclear, and had a lot of unspoken judgments. The year 2016 was a turning point in Saudi Arabia modern history, when Saudi decided to step up and take advantage of its hidden strengths in all sectors, utilizing the past and present to build a brighter future. Saudi Arabia started to turn from a government-led economy to an investment-led economy, leveraging all sectors and agencies and aiming further to play faciliatory role as government. The quick-fix strategy Saudi applied in 2016 shifted many sectors and influenced more meaningful changes.

When I was a master’s student at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy in fall 2016, I was enrolled in a class called Governance, Corruption, Accountability, and Transparency. In that class, Professor Dale Murphy emailed me a paper about Saudi Arabia, which was one of the materials for a debate in the class. The paper was published by Harvard Business School and titled Saudi Arabia: Finding Stability after the Arab Spring?⁴

I still remember going through the Saudi Vision official website all night to obtain a holistic overview of it so that I could answer the questions in the debate next day. The Vision 2030 was launched in April 2016 and faced speculations from people and entities internally and internationally. I knew that I would be facing the same speculations in the class debate, and most of them would be around gender policies and oil industry. I gathered some notes and facts about policies in Saudi Arabia, but what stood out in my mind were many quotes from the journal I read. Saudi Arabia was facing four significant issues: economic issues, gender gap issues, human resource issues, and identity issues.

In 2015, King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz passed away after ten years of setting up progressive policies and preparing the Saudi society for a different level of globalization. King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz was the first initiator of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Scholarship Program, which introduced a vast number of Saudi students to the world and different global educational institutions. It became ordinary to have one or two members of each family studying abroad for years. This program was an instrument of Saudi Arabia’s soft power.

When King Salman Bin Abdulaziz became the King of Saudi Arabia, he inherited many challenges eternally and externally, which might have threatened the stability of the Kingdom. The Crown Prince launched the Vision 2030 in April 2016, which encompasses optimistic possibilities for the Saudi nation.

In April 2019, my airplane landed at King Abdulaziz International Airport, and when I was passing by the passport checkpoint, I was welcomed by a Saudi woman who took my passport and scanned my fingerprint. That moment held a lot of pride for me, and I smiled. That was my first trip back to Saudi after studying abroad for many years and being welcomed by a woman in the airport made my day. That day, I was welcomed with two relevant policies: empowering women to work in different sectors and strong e-government governance policies. I spent the summer of 2019 interning for Monitor Deloitte, and I was placed in one of the projects in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where I had the privilege to observe the Saudi Arabian progress and improvements.

Forward to 2020, based on the World Bank Doing Business Report 2020, Saudi Arabia ranked number one globally as top reformer and improver, with nine regulatory reforms implemented.⁵ Moreover, according to the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law Report 2020, Saudi Arabia made the biggest improvements globally, enacting reforms in six out of eight areas measured including in women’s mobility, sexual harassment, retirement age, and economic activity. Further, it was the top economy that was most progressive toward gender equality.⁶ The Saudi Arabia Competitiveness Report Card, published in 2019 by the Saudi National Competitive Center, also mentioned that Saudi Arabia ranked the sixth improving economy in the world, third most competitive economy in the Arab World, the sixteenth G20 economy based on GDP size and eleventh based on competitiveness, and the first in GCC and second in the Arab world regarding women’s economic empowerment reforms.⁷

It seems hard to drive such a change in a short time; however, Saudi Arabia has proved that statement wrong. The launch of the Saudi Vision in 2016 and the speedy implementation of Saudi’s new policies have made an enormous impact globally as well as nationally. Government agencies started preparing, setting goals, and building strategies in 2016 and took the liberty of making corrections throughout the way. The Saudi Vision leverages a quick fix methodology through fixing urgent issues without affecting the current government spending, instead relocating government funding. Almost all government ministers and agencies were subjugated to restructuring and implemented a VRO (Vision Realization Office) in each ministry. The Vision 2030 also targeted Saudi citizens as an essential pillar of a successful vision and relied on the Saudi youth to lead that change.

During the past five years, Saudi Arabia proved that by focusing on public policy, especially in four substantive issues, change could happen. Saudi ensured to engage all the stakeholders who were affected by the new changes and policies within the process. The prevalence of Vision 2030 over all sectors and ministries and the massive media campaign for it guaranteed engagement. Also, the accurate conducive context of the policies and embracing sharp justification and feasible adoption of the policies helped hasten the implementation—finally, a coherent implementation strategy.

When I arrived at Georgetown University, I was confident that my experience in this school would shape the rest of my life, and so far, it has. Attending the required classes and other lectures all over the campus, learning more about policies and politics, and socializing with students and professors from all over the world has changed me and shaped my views. I used to stand up and speak my mind about many issues and controversial subjects and topics. One day, one of my