Social Development Areas

What are the areas of social development?

Social development is based on the principle that investment in individuals is necessary for the progress of society. In this case, social development aims to enable the citizens and move the barriers that stand in front of them, to achieve their ambitious goals with ease. To achieve these goals, social development included several areas to focus on:

Seeking to achieve the basic needs of the society

In order to achieve social development, providing the basic needs of the dreamers in society from individuals and small and medium enterprises is a must. The United Nations Committee has approved this as a part of global goals to achieve sustainable development. Saudi Arabia was one of the leading countries that supported these goals in its Vision 2030. Many governmental institutions provided support to society’s dreamers to enable them to achieve their goals, and one of these institutions is the Social Development bank, which provides several social funding services to different segments of the society.

The funding also includes productive families, as the number of beneficiaries from this funding reached more than 95,000 families so far. In addition, it includes freelance workers, targeting citizens with specialized skills and crafts. This funding comes in two types: Cash funding and car funding with a ceiling of 30,000 Riyals (8000 USD).

Paying attention to the social security system

The importance of social security lines in providing retired pay which is a basis of a fixed income for the citizen after retirement, families after the pass of the main provider, and workers who are exposed to health issues that prevent them from working. Moreover, social security plays a huge part in reducing the risks of unemployment, by giving a chance to the elderly to retire early which opens new job opportunities for the younger generations, making way for young forces to be pumped into the market.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development in the Kingdom has sought by studying and examining the old system, and then develop it in the light of the strategic objectives of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 to ensure the motivation of the beneficiary groups that can work, and to encourage the beneficiaries to continue their educations and rehabilitate and train them.

Providing good job opportunities and promoting employment

Social development should include promoting employment and ensuring good and fair job opportunities to empower society, especially youth and women. In this case, the kingdom has made efforts in this, as the General Authority for Statistics issued a statement confirming the reduction of the unemployment rate in Saudi society to 9.9% in the third quarter of 2022 in comparison to 11.0% in the fourth quarter of 2021.

In addition, the Kingdom has made empowering women in the labor market one of its priorities by launching several initiatives that call for this, including the initiative of empowering women and enhancing their leadership role in the contribution of increasing the rate of women’s participation in the governmental and private sectors at all job levels to expand the work options for them.

Nevertheless, The Human Resources Development Fund provides a program (Qurrah) that supports Saudi mothers, by creating a link between the mother and the hospitality center to register their children. Moreover, the program is contributed to cover part of the cost of the registration.

The program (Wusool) invented to raise women’s participation in the labor market, and enable them to work in the private sector. This is by overcoming the problems and difficulties of transportation to and from the workplace in pursuit of job stability. The program works in cooperation with rides applications, and with financial support from the Human Development Fund to provide the best quality transportation at an appropriate cost, in order to achieve the Saudi vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020.

Supporting small and medium enterprises

Small and medium enterprises are important because they provide income to their owners and create job opportunities that might be more satisfactory than those in larger companies, and these enterprises can be more helpful in strengthening the local society and economy.

Saudi Arabia has sought to support these enterprises believing in its importance, the Small and Medium Enterprises General Authority (Monsha’at) was established with the aim of coordinating and developing this sector with the best international practices to raise the productivity of these enterprises and increase their contribution to the GDP from 20% to 35% by 2030. Moreover, The National Development Fund launched the Small and Medium Enterprises Bank as one of the development banks to achieve financial stability for this sector, to be a key pillar of economic development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Engorging saving among individuals

Financial awareness is one of the most important skills that all members of society should acquire. The financial awareness concept falls in the ability to manage, save, and effectively invest money, and its importance lies in being able to achieve financial independence that gives individuals more freedom in investing in time and to think of businesses and projects that resonate with them without causing the pressure that falls on individuals who are not financially independent.

The Saudi government has considered the importance of saving and investing by intending to support its citizens of all ages and find tools that enable them to save money. Thus, the Social Development Bank offers saving programs such as “Zood Generation’s Program”, which is an advanced smart bank that encourages individuals aged (6-18) years old to save their money, set a budget for their daily expenses, and teach them how to deal with bank accounts under the supervision of the parents.

In addition, the bank offers its customer the “Zood Program”, a subsidized savings product that provides simplified saving plans that enable them to save a steady amount of money to meet their needs in the future. The number of beneficiaries of the program has reached more than 130,000 so far.