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Physical activity policy in Saudi Arabia: analysis of progress and challenges

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-27, 14:58 authored by Naif Albujulaya, Clare StevinsonClare Stevinson, Joe PigginJoe Piggin

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is currently undergoing radical and dynamic changes towards development and prosperity across various domains. The Saudi government is focused on promoting physical activity because of its economic, health and cultural benefits. Therefore, sport policy represents a key part of the Saudi government’s Vision (Vision 2030) within the national Quality of Life Programme. The purpose of the study was to analyse the initiatives within the policy that relate to physical activity promotion across the population. The analysis was based on the Comprehensive Analysis of Policy on Physical Activity framework to audit and assess relevant parts of the policy. Published materials were appraised to provide evidence on the progress with achieving the policy’s goals and semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders. Our analysis indicated an ambitious but well-founded policy and the achievement of several objectives. The most apparent achievements have thus far been the rapid, albeit modest cultural change in terms of physical activity, allowing women’s sports and stimulating the level of physical activity among Saudis. Nonetheless some goals are further from being achieved, particularly those around female participation in sports. In conclusion, some progress has been made in realising the policy in relation to physical activity, but various factors exist that have hindered success in certain areas.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Authors

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Taylor & Francis under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC-ND). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2023-05-22

Publication date

2023-06-22

Copyright date

2023

ISSN

1940-6940

eISSN

1940-6959

Language

  • en

Depositor

Naif Albujulaya. Deposit date: 27 June 2023

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