On Thursday in Riyadh, the Family Affairs Council organized an introductory workshop for family affairs committees in the regions, in the presence of the Secretary General of the Council, Dr. Hala Al-Tuwaijri, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior for Regional Affairs Khalid Al-Ghamlas, Chairman of the Main Committee, Colonel Ahmed Al-Fares, and heads and members of sub-committees in the administrative regions. The workshop aimed at introducing the family affairs committees in the regions to their roles and tasks in enhancing the status of the Saudi family and empowering them, diagnosing their current reality in preparation for drawing a future strategy that enables them to perform their roles in an exemplary manner by knowing the family development needs of each region and the challenges facing families in all regions of the Kingdom.

Dr. Hala Al-Tuwaijri said: We are pleased to build bridges of effective communication between the General Secretariat and the committees to do everything that will advance the Saudi family in all regions of the Kingdom, and we cannot come up with a strategy for the Council without a mechanism that deals with all regions, so we will work with the regional committees to achieve the goals and mission of the Council, and we look forward to getting feedback from the heads and members of the committees in all regions about the governance mechanism and the needs of the committees. She added: One of the roles of the Council is to coordinate with the committees to draw recommendations and methodologies and activate them in each region through universities, partner institutions, associations, and there are committees supervised by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development and non-profit institutions that are considered tools that must be activated and can be reached through the committees in the regions, as the implementation plan is not a single template, but we can extract a general methodology that takes into account the needs of each region.

She added: The council’s goal is to come up with actionable plans that identify important priorities for the Saudi family in the next five years. She continued: There is no duplication of work and tasks because the council aims to draw implementation plans, not implementation itself, and when submitting any recommendation, the implementation mechanism must be attached to it and indicators must be set, and then the role of monitoring the implementation of the concerned authorities comes. For his part, Al-Ghamlas said: “The family is the cornerstone of the proper construction of society and taking care of its affairs is a great mission that requires us to govern the work and concerted efforts to provide the best, as the Ministry of Interior focuses on the efforts made in this direction and is supported by all sectors. On the other hand, the workshop witnessed a review of the draft childhood strategy presented by Dr. Ghada Al-Subaie, head of the Childhood Committee. She stated that the Council completed the strategy by working with 33 government agencies and took one year and two months and focused on defining childhood by studying all studies and statistics related to children.

Dr. Lana Bin Saeed, head of the Women’s Committee, presented an overview of the draft Saudi Women’s Roadmap, which was adopted at the third session of the Council. Dr. Lana Bin Saeed, head of the Women’s Committee, presented an overview of the Saudi Women’s Roadmap project, which was adopted at the third session of the Council. In conclusion, the workshop focused on the methodology of analyzing the family development needs to come up with the most important challenges and solutions, the best methodology and mechanism for activation, in addition to identifying partner agencies and the role of the committee in each region.

It is worth mentioning that the Family Affairs Council was established by a decision of the Council of Ministers and is based in Riyadh. It is chaired by Minister of Labor and Social Development Ahmed Al-Rajhi and includes a number of representatives of government sectors and independent members, and has effective institutional channels in all regions of the Kingdom.