Assessing progress towards smart governance in Saudi Arabia

Rapid worldwide urbanization has become a crucial challenge that needs to be addressed, particularly in developing countries which are characterized by rapid urbanization (United Nations 2018). Cities are places for human and environmental interactions by means of urbanization processes, which cause many significant socioeconomic and environmental transitions (Aldegheishem 2023a), while the interrelationship between the economy and urbanization increases both economic activities and urban growth (Alnsour 2016). Conversely, rapid urbanization increases the use of natural resources and leads to environmental, social, and economic challenges (Alnsour 2016). To overcome these challenges, most world governments have started to use Information Communication Technology (ICT) to manage cities, people, and services. Hollands (2015) emphasized the need for technologies that enable governments to raise performance levels, thereby increasing the rate of progress for economic, social, and environmental aspects. According to Leydesdorff and Deakin (2011), urban development is a result of the policies used to execute decisions made by governmental agencies. The importance of the operational role of ICT in managing cities has made urban authorities reassess their performance in smart governance (Giffinger et al. 2007). Smart governance is responsible for influencing management and operations related to smart city activities. It aims to efficiently execute smart city policies through the application of new technologies. The responsiveness of the public sector, with reference to smart governance politics, is influenced by two factors. Firstly, the extent of effectiveness in terms of available funding, new technology, community participation, institutional organization, coordination among local authorities, and political practices, (Giffinger et al. 2007; Kourtit et al. 2012; Batty et al. 2012; Yigitcanlar et al. 2008; Willke 2007, Aldegheishem 2023c), and secondly, the extent of the public sector’s ability to understand smart governance itself. Smart governance as a powerful political instrument does not operate in a vacuum. It is, rather, associated with components, outcomes, indicators, and driving forces (Tomor et al. 2019; Ruhlandt 2018; Bolívar and Meijer 2016). Components refer to stakeholders’ tasks and perspectives (e.g., Dameri and Benevolo 2016; Bolívar 2016), operations, including technology, data, decision-making, and execution (e.g., Pereira et al. 2017; Gil-Garcia et al. 2015), and the legislative domains which exist to solve problems faced by smart cities (e.g., El-Ghalayini and Al-Kandari 2020; Meijer 2016). A variety of outcomes that highlight the level of progress towards the social, economic, and environmental pillars of urban smartness, thereby improving quality of life have been identified (Herdiyanti et al. 2019; Ruhlandt 2018; Castelnovo et al. 2016). Indicators to measure progress include access to online public services and the internet, public participation, social services, finance, bureaucracy, transparency, economic growth, employment, and initiatives (Ruhlandt 2018; Herdiyanti et al. 2019). Driving forces refer to the local social, economic, and cultural conditions of smart cities (Ruhlandt 2018; Meijer 2016). These components constitute the core of smart governance policies that facilitate progress towards social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainability. Saudi Arabia is characterized by high population growth, a rapid urbanization rate, and positive economic capabilities. It has achieved a great deal of progress towards sustainable development, and noticeably positioned itself towards urban smartness. Over the past few years, a number of Saudi cities have been classified as "smarter" in international indices, such as Riyadh, Makkah, Medina, and Jeddah (World Competitiveness Center 2023). Nonetheless, smart cities in Saudi Arabia, as with many other global cities, still encounter several challenges in urban smartness (Aldegheishem 2023a; Alshuwaikhat et al. 2022a; Alswedani et al. 2022; Alamoudi et al. 2022; Aina 2017). Therefore, this study targets Saudi Arabia to assess smart governance, based on identifying five distinct areas by means of sixteen indicators for smart governance performance, while addressing the following main research questions: (1) How can smart governance be assessed? (2) What are the indicators that measure the performance of smart governance? (3) What are the main deviations that encounter the smart governance process? (4) What are the necessary implications to improve the performance of smart governance? Assessing smart governance practices provides a means to map the strengths and weaknesses of smart governance, thus offering a valuable scenario on the significance of this technique for urban systems management. The contribution of this study to current academic literature is that it identifies numerous indicators of smart governance to assess the suitability and success of current practices of smart governance in Saudi Arabia. To sum up, this study assesses smart governance in Saudi Arabia using a broad-based literature review, together with the existing international reports, to include all relevant indicators of smart governance progress. The variables used in this study can be utilized for a cost-benefit analysis in the context of smart cities, allowing policymakers to better respond to smart city challenges. Additionally, research on this topic is lacking, particularly in the Middle East region including Saudi Arabia. The major value of this empirical study lies in its exploration of the forefront of urban policies aimed at developing smart cities. This study enables policymakers and researchers to re-review current smart governance policies while providing valuable insights into relevant policy issues in Saudi Arabia. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The second section presents the literature review. Section three introduces a research methodology and data. Section four discusses the empirical findings of the study. Conclusions, contributions, and implications are presented in Section five.

The smart city theory consists of six areas; smart economy, environment, people, mobility, living, and governance (Giffinger and Gudrun 2010). These areas are inter- and intra-connected to each other and related directly to the characteristics of urbanization (Lombardi, et al. 2012; Ma 2012), suggesting that smart cities are not only places for innovation, but also an engine for urbanism as a lifestyle, and progression. The literature review shows that smart governance has been defined in many ways. Giffinger et al. (2007) argue that smart governance consists of several dimensions including public participation, service delivery for people, and administration performance, whereas Schuurman et al. (2012) define smart governance as gathering data and information regarding public management through sensor networks. Batty et al. (2012) consider smart governance as a smart function for coordinating the elements that constitute the smart city. Walravens (2012) argues that smart governance is a decision-making process using network technology. As can be seen from the definitions above, there is no consensus among researchers on the definition of smart governance. However, there are different elements of the smart governance concept, including participation, information gathering, use of ICT, coordination, a decision-making process, e-administration and online interaction with people, and service delivery, which are all required for smart city governance. These elements together aim to improve the economic, social, and environmental pillars of smart cities and enhance quality of life. The role of information and a sensory network in smart governance is illustrated by the occurrence of multiple instruments and technologies that are designed to enhance public participation (Anttiroiko et al. 2014; Royo et al. 2014; Estevez et al. 2013). The question of how to enhance public participation using ICT has been raised, as smart governance continues to encounter obstacles in Saudi Arabia (Alajmi et al. 2020). The country has defined the objectives of public participation, including promoting democracy and a legitimate decision-making process when citizens are users of local knowledge and able to define priorities and resource allocation. To enhance participation, Saudi Arabia has created various technological instruments, such as the establishment of an e-government program in 2005 called YESSER. The main objective of this program was to enable people to access governmental services electronically. As a primary step towards realizing smart governance, the government has embraced wireless communication and mobile services to enhance the efficiency of service delivery (Aldegheishem 2023a). Gil-Garcia et al. (2015) argue that successful smart governance requires stakeholder participation, ICT-based service delivery, and network-based relationships. In this context, the extensive use of ICT effectively in Saudi Arabia has simplified the process of participation between citizens and governmental agencies, achieving progress in the social, economic, and environmental pillars of smart cities and sustainability (Aldegheishem 2023b). Yetano and Royo (2017) argue that ICTs enable all people to use ICT and provide open access to information, which are considered basic conditions to achieve effective participation. The principle of public services as a governmental commitment is the provision of high-quality services to the public (Alnsour 2014). Furthermore, in order for these services to satisfy the requirements of local people, adequate financial resources must be allocated. Hence, well-resourced public services, particularly health, education, and infrastructure, are the most powerful instruments for augmenting smart governance. To conclude, smart governance enhances the effectiveness of public services by delivering services that satisfy the citizens' requirements in a timely manner. In this context, over the last decade, the practices of a smart city in Saudi Arabia have focused mainly on smart economic development, emphasizing the effectiveness of public services in improving sustainable economic development, (Aldegheishem 2023c). Hence, the first comprehensive review of smart cities emerged in Saudi Vision 2030, based on e-government elements, establishing smart city initiatives for all Saudi cities (Aldegheishem 2023c). The outcomes of these initiatives have contributed to transforming traditional cities into smarter ones rapidly. The elaboration on smart government services has increased investment opportunities in infrastructure and services of smart cities. Governmental organizations include numerous elements, such as institutional culture, budgets, technological equipment, Human Resource performance, laws, institutional frameworks, motivation, vision, and plans (Przeybilovicz et al. 2017). The success of these elements is based on clarity of goals, information content, responsiveness, and reliability. Goal clarity enables institutions to understand, modify, define, and achieve a smart city service system (Guo and Poole 2009). Information content leads to a successful smart governance system if they are relevant, easy to use, up-to-date, and inclusive (Sharma et al. 2017), responsiveness refers to the speed and level to which citizens' needs are met by a smart governance system (Gorla et al. 2010), and reliability is the ability of a smart governance system to solve problems without errors (Gorla et al. 2010). If these components (i.e. goal clarity, information content, responsiveness, and reliability) receive ongoing political support, government effectiveness will be enhanced, thereby increasing trust between citizens and the government (Alnosur 2014). Saudi Arabia has revised institutional frameworks holistically to rationalize subsidies, enhance productivity, raise the efficiency of local authorities, and improve the quality of life. Local authorities have been granted more autonomy to make decisions and plans, while the private sector has been encouraged to participate in economic development. The political domain raises smart governance performance by controlling corruption while increasing accountability, transparency, and the rule of law. A number of studies have discussed the type of political system which is a condition for positive outcomes of smart governance to be met (Sieber 2006; Roman and Miller 2013; Paskaleva 2014). The performance of sustainable development policies is high in politically liberal environments (Berry and Portney 2013), indicating the importance of linkage among ICT, political context, and citizens that enhance the efficiency of smart governance (Tikka and Sassi 2011). Saudi Arabia has implemented many reforms in governance to enhance accountability and transparency, such as establishing the Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority in 2011 and the Human Rights Commission in 2005. Effective political domains organize the decision-making process and enable citizens to access public data (Batty et al. 2012), as well as encouraging innovation and creating cooperation channels among local authorities (Correljé et al. 2015; Voorberg et al. 2015). Thus, governance policies depend on political activity, with the decisions driving sustainable development as the outcome of political processes at the national and international levels. In recent decades, Saudi Arabia has witnessed progress towards urban smartness, as Saudi Vision 2030 has set specific goals to transform into smart cities. In 2017, in alignment with the Saudi Vision, the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing (MOMRAH) initiated the inaugural Smart Cities program. This initiative aims to catalyze a transition towards urban intelligence, with 17 cities earmarked (representing 72% of the total population) for the implementation of smart urban projects. Consequently, smart city initiatives have been launched in prominent urban centers, including Riyadh, Makkah, Jeddah, Medina, Yanbu industrial city, Neom, and Al-Ahsa. The allocated fund for smart city initiatives reached $3500 million in 2019 (Gaul 2021). Therefore, it becomes imperative to evaluate the progress of these cities in their journey towards urban intelligence, thereby enhancing decision-making processes and knowledge enrichment. In Saudi Arabia, the smart governance studies focus on elements and objectives of smart governance from multiple fields, such as engineering, geography, public administration, and environment (e.g. Mutambik et al. 2023; Aljoufie and Tiwari 2022; Alshuwaikhat et al. 2022a; Alshuwaikhat et al. 2022b; Alswedani et al. 2022; Alam et al. 2021; Alamoudi et al. 2022; Doheim et al. 2019; Aina et al. 2019; Al-Maliki 2018; AlEnezi et al. 2018; Aina 2017). Although these studies provide contributions to smart governance as a fundamental instrument in achieving progress towards smart cities, they fail to comprehensively assess smart governance indicators. To increase the contributions of these studies, a valid assessment of smart governance indicators is necessary. Without assessment studies, it is difficult to establish a baseline for research, and therefore impossible to accurately measure the achievement of smart governance practices in Saudi Arabia. Assessing smart governance indicators holistically provides applicable recommendations on comparative strengths and weaknesses, while disclosing the driving forces for successful city development. These assessments are based on up-to-date data and information, comparative scales, and qualitative criteria.

The investigation methodology involves the development of a framework incorporating governance principles as defined by previous studies, along with measurement parameters, to facilitate measurement of governance system performance. The study assesses smart governance based on five areas using sixteen indicators adopted from existing literature (e.g., Zhu et al. 2019; Boukhris et al. 2016; Chatfield and Reddick 2019; Aldegheishem 2023a; Dameri and Benevolo 2016). Indicators span: e-service system (ratio of online public services; mobile cellular subscriptions; individuals using internet), participation (visitors to the Unified National Portal; ratio of voters in municipal councils), expenditure (expenditure on health, education, municipal services as % of GDP), governmental organization (government effectiveness; clearness of goals; information content; responsiveness; reliability), and political domain (control of corruption; rule of law; regulatory quality). Data sources include the World Bank World Development Indicators (WB/WDI, 2022), the General Authority for Statistics (GAS), and the Ministry of Finance (MF). Direct indicators were collected from public and international sources. For four organizational indicators lacking direct data (clearness of goals, information content, reliability, responsiveness), values were derived from previous studies (e.g., Alarabi and Alasmari 2023; Aldegheishem 2023a,b,c; Sultan 2011; Aina et al. 2019). All criteria were quantified and standardized using a min–max technique on a 0–10 scale, where 0 represents the worst and 10 the best value. The indicator score Ii was computed as: Ii = abs((-10 × pi) + ((xi − Xmin)/(Xmax − Xmin) × 10)), where pi flags inverse proportionality (Yes=1, No=0), xi is the observed/literature-based value, and Xmin, Xmax are bounds. Bounds were derived from averages with a deviation percentage P2: Xmin = xa − xa(P2/100), Xmax = xa + xa(P2/100). After computing standardized indicator scores, weights were estimated for each indicator and area, and an overall smart governance performance score (out of 50, then scaled to percentage) was calculated. Operationally, Table 1 lists variables, measurements, and sources; Table 2 presents indicator values and weights (e.g., online public services 97%, mobile subscriptions 124.77%, internet users 100%, portal visitors 42% of population, municipal voter turnout 47.4%, health 5.3% GDP, education 7.8% GDP, municipal services 3.2% GDP, government effectiveness 0.583, control of corruption 0.3069, rule of law 0.2906, regulatory quality 0.4185, and literature-based organizational attributes at 60–70%); Table 3 aggregates area weights and values and reports the total progress level.

- Overall progress towards smart governance in Saudi Arabia is high at 85.2% (42.6/50). - Strong performance in the e-service system: online public services ratio 97%; mobile cellular subscriptions 124.77% of population; individuals using the internet 100% of population. This area shows no major challenges per the study. - Participation shows mixed results: visitors to the National Unified Portal equal 42% of the population (area score contribution 5.8/10 noted in text); municipal council voter participation is 47.4% of electors. Participation remains a challenge influenced by willingness, sociocultural context, and regulations, though ICT adoption has facilitated engagement. - Expenditure on key public services is robust: health 5.3% of GDP; education 7.8% of GDP; municipal services 3.2% of GDP. In 2022, SAR 955 billion total spending with SAR 185b for education, SAR 135b for health, and SAR 50b for municipal services (38.74% combined share). Spending has improved service performance and smart governance. - Governmental organization has improved: government effectiveness rose from -0.22941 (1996) to 0.583 (2022). Literature-based organizational attributes are assessed at clearness of goals 70%, information content 60%, responsiveness 70%, reliability 70%. Responsiveness evidenced by reduced time to start a business (81.3 days in 2003 to 10.4 days in 2019) and fewer procedures to register property (from 5 in 2014 to 2 in 2019). - Political domain indicators improved: control of corruption 0.3069 (standardized to 5.528/10 in discussion), rule of law 0.2906 (6.045/10), regulatory quality 0.4185 (6.779/10). Corruption control improved from -0.321 (2011) to 0.307 (2021); rule of law improved from 0.045 (2009) to 0.290 (2022). Increased trust and investment reflected by new businesses rising from 5,762 (2010) to 15,920 (2020). - External alignment: Government Electronic and Mobile Services Maturity Index score 87.39% (regional first in Middle East and South Africa); EGDI rank 31/193; E-Participation rank 43/193. - Area-level contributions (Table 3): e-service system value 12.2 (weight 0.24), participation 6.8 (0.12), expenditure 9.5 (0.18), governmental organization 6.4 (0.23), political domain 7.7 (0.23).

The findings demonstrate that Saudi Arabia has made significant strides toward smart governance, effectively addressing the research questions regarding assessment, indicators, deviations, and policy implications. By applying a standardized, multi-indicator framework across five areas, the study identifies e-services and public spending as key drivers of progress, while revealing persistent challenges in citizen participation, aspects of governmental organization (notably information content and inter-stakeholder cooperation), and elements of the political domain that still require enhancement. High e-service maturity and ubiquitous ICT access have streamlined interactions between citizens and government, strengthening the social and economic pillars of smart cities. Strong fiscal commitment to education, health, and municipal services underpins service quality, enabling timely, citizen-oriented delivery. Organizational improvements, including heightened effectiveness, responsiveness, and reliability, translate into more efficient administrative processes (e.g., business start-up time and property registration), thereby increasing public trust and private sector activity. Political domain advances—enhanced control of corruption, rule of law, and regulatory quality—further consolidate governance capacity, catalyzing investment and reinforcing legitimacy. These results align with international benchmarks (e.g., EGDI, e-participation, and government e/m-services maturity), corroborating the robustness of progress. Nevertheless, the analysis indicates that sustained attention to participatory mechanisms, comprehensive and timely information content, and stakeholder collaboration is essential to achieve optimal smart governance outcomes and to fully integrate citizen input into decision-making.

This study advances understanding of smart governance’s role in addressing urban challenges, improving quality of life, and promoting sustainable development. Using five criteria and sixteen indicators, it empirically confirms that Saudi Arabia has achieved strong progress (85.2%) toward smart governance. Key strengths include the e-service system and substantial public expenditure on services, while notable challenges persist in citizen participation, aspects of governmental organization (especially information content and inter-stakeholder cooperation), and in further strengthening the political domain. Policy implications include: (1) enhancing citizen participation through clear objectives, procedures, and incentives—particularly encouraging broader inclusion (e.g., women) in municipal processes; (2) adopting a comprehensive, data-rich information framework to support data-based decision-making and improved coordination among stakeholders; and (3) bolstering transparency and accountability by empowering media and civil society to monitor public sector performance. Future research should examine frameworks to deepen citizen participation, benchmark against global best practices, and contextualize lessons for continued improvement across the assessed areas. Overall, smart governance—grounded in ICT, collaboration, and participation—supports integrated smart city development and implementation of mega-projects in Saudi Arabia.

Some indicators lacked direct, up-to-date primary data (clearness of goals, information content, responsiveness, reliability). For these, the study relied on estimates derived from prior literature, which may introduce uncertainty. The analysis is based primarily on secondary data from public and international sources (e.g., WB/WDI, GAS, MF) and standardized via a min–max approach, which depends on chosen bounds and deviation assumptions. These factors may affect precision and generalizability of the results.