Influential people in the Kingdom will be selected as ‘ambassadors’ to promote social responsibility in the country, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
The initiative is one of five launched by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development and will support some of the goals in the Vision 2030 reform plan.
The ministry’s director general of social responsibility said that, as well as ambassadors, there would be partners, an observatory, an incubator and a guidebook.
“During workshops held in the past many comprehensive programs have been discussed, mainly those supporting the Kingdom’s progress in community and volunteer development,” said Faisal Al-Yousef.
The aim of the ambassadors program is to attract people who are influential in their field and leverage that influence to spread a culture of social responsibility in Saudi Arabia, he said, as well as showing its true social and economic value. The list of ambassadors includes many prominent and influential personalities, he added.
“The ambassadors are partners with the ministry in communicating its mission to people by contributing to the enhancement of social and corporate responsibility by supporting initiatives in the Vision 2030 programs, as well as ministry-related initiatives.”
The ambassadors will also contribute by providing solutions and proposals to resolve social issues and transforming these proposals into initiatives and sustainable development programs, he added.
Al-Yousef said the observatory initiative will allow for the identification of all social responsibility issues in the Kingdom, as well as better coordination with other parties, and for the data to be published on a national website.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Development wants nonprofit organizations to widen their role in providing social services in line with Vision 2030, which aims to raise the nonprofit sector’s contribution to gross domestic product from less than 1 percent to 5 percent.
Vision 2030 also wants a million volunteers in the Kingdom by 2030. There were around 11,000 volunteers when the reform plan was launched.
