DAVOS: Saudi Arabia is to launch a new Quality of Life Index — developed in partnership with UN-Habitat — the Kingdom’s Tourism Minister Ahmed Al-Khateeb announced on Tuesday, with Saudi Ambassador to the US Princess Reema bint Bandar calling it a Saudi “gift to the world.”
Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Al-Khateeb said the index was positioned as a global public resource designed to help people, cities and governments better understand what makes urban life thrive.
Princess Reema described the index as a reflection of the Kingdom’s broader Vision 2030 reforms and a tool intended to benefit people far beyond Saudi Arabia.
She said: “The Quality of Life Index is not just a Saudi initiative, it’s a UN initiative. The ownership of the data and the content lives there. We’re populating it and we are gifting it to the world — and that’s one of the things that’s most exciting for me.”
The index, which has been under development for three years as part of a wider Quality of Life Program in the Kingdom, aims to provide a comprehensive, human-centered assessment of how cities perform across a wide range of factors that shape everyday life, from healthcare, education and mobility to safety, culture, entertainment and green spaces.
