LIVING well

Can you elaborate on the essence of the Quality of Life program, launched in mid-2018 with a SAR130-billion (USD34.6 billion) budget, and how you envision funding to be allocated to achieve its goals?

The Quality of Life Program is one of the vision realization programs (VRPs) adopted by HRH Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2016. It is based on three main pillars: a vibrant society, a thriving economy, and an ambitious nation. Vision 2030 aims to bring about a major qualitative leap on several levels including economic, social, cultural, and others. The Quality of Life program is one of the most comprehensive programs to achieve this vision and the most relevant to the lives of citizens and residents. It was originally established to enhance the quality of life in the Kingdom through improved lifestyle and infrastructure development. Second, we also aim to improve lifestyles to support the entertainment, cultural, sport, and recreational sectors and to increase the interaction of individuals and society with these sectors. The infrastructure for this includes work on transport, the urban landscape, housing, education, health, and other vital sectors of the country. Funding for the program’s initiatives is through several means. Initiatives with high returns that can be accomplished quickly involve the private sector, such as cinemas, which has been revived through the program’s initiatives, the implementation of the General Commission for Audiovisual Media (GCAM), and the private sector. Vital initiatives that lack financial or low-cost returns are achieved through direct government spending from the budget allocated to the program’s initiatives, which are implemented by various government agencies according to their mandates, such as the General Culture Authority (GCA), the General Sport Authority (GSA), the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Housing, the Ministry of Education, and other quality-of-life partners. In total, there are 14 executive bodies for the initiatives of the program and more than 100 diverse initiatives, depending on the competencies of the partners. The program works with all these agencies to ensure that the initiatives are implemented.

How can the Quality of Life program provide a smooth transition to an active and vibrant entertainment sector?

Legislative initiatives occupy an important part of the program. The program works through several initiatives to change and develop legislation related to entertainment and culture and general legislation, which affect the quality of life in the Kingdom. We have initiatives with GCAM, GEA, and other sectors to remove any legislative obstacles to the growth of the sector and add incentive legislation that contributes to its growth. The legislation concerning GCAM and GEA was recently approved and is one of the main initiatives of the program to develop the general legislative environment in the Kingdom. Our organization is also well-positioned to monitor the ownership of the various programs, guide collaboration between the various authorities, and reassign certain responsibilities, if necessary.

What primary ambitions have you set for the coming year?

Following the approval of the organizational arrangements for the Quality of Life Program Center in November 2018, the program has now become one of our core priorities. The center will be independent and aims to support the hobbies sector, develop possible regulations and specialized competencies in quality of life, and initiate innovative creative initiatives. In 2019, we aspire to improve the quality of life in the Kingdom, move ahead with all the program’s initiatives, build a broader strategy for the coming years, and come closer than ever to making the Kingdom’s cities some of the leading cities in the world. ✖

Today, we are simply putting more focus on the entertainment sector. The entertainment offering has always been a wide one across multiple categories, and the first few years have proven that these offerings are in high demand. Under our new leadership, we have more support to expand our plans and fast track many of our initiatives. One of the most vital developments was the establishment of the Saudi Seasons, a new calendar concept led by a new committee directly under the Crown Prince. Across the Kingdom, for all provinces, we have aligned the entertainment agenda in terms of these seasons to better align all events, taking into consideration our climate conditions and cultural agenda. This organizes internal tourism and will attract tourists from abroad. Additionally, we will fill these seasons with cultural, entertainment, and sporting events to create a better quality of life in the Kingdom by spreading joy and creating a vibrant society.

How does this seasonal approach call for more alignment among all the cultural authorities?

With anything that is new, coordination will get better over time. For example, the National Day was a well-coordinated effort across multiple authorities. Now with the creation of Seasons, different committees are focused on different aspects, such as culture, entertainment, sporting, and tourism. This allows us to adopt a holistic approach and adds a lot of demand for creating events and activities that attract tourism, both locally and internationally. We are working now to make sure we program the Seasons well in terms of location, time, and audience. We also take international occasions into consideration and aim to create events that are relevant to a global audience.

Will the authority slowly phase out of its role as a funder and become a regulator?

The funding initiative is currently housed under

GEA since no other mandate exists for it. However, a new entity will take over this role in the future. The infrastructure will be expanded to accommodate different SME funding models. That said, we invite banks and other financial institutions to invest in entertainment, including the entire chain of private equity and private capital. In the recent years, we have proven there is demand, and now we have to prove there is a financial reward. We will then witness more funding vehicles that want to contribute. Subsidies are going to ease eventually, and it will become more sustainable through creating the right infrastructure. For example, we currently lack dedicated venues and are thus relying on existing ones such as universities, public spaces, lands, and so on. We are working to create a platform that includes a database of all available venues so we can match them with the relevant event organizers.

First and foremost, we will continue to align ourselves with other government entities to take a holistic view on developing the entertainment economy. The concept of seasons is also a priority that we are expanding. Tourism, culture, entertainment, and sport go hand-in-hand and will all contribute their share to the improvement of the quality of life in Saudi Arabia. Developing local content and infrastructure to facilitate growth is another strategic priority. The sector needs more local talent, and we recently organized a competition to source the available talents and train them. In more practical terms, we want to streamline our licensing process, so it becomes simpler for companies to get the necessary licensing for events. We are working on setting quality standards, developing a protocol for live events, and launching theme parks. In terms of local content, we are striving to export our own intellectual property and commercialize our offerings internationally. ✖