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Saudi Arabia was elected vice president of the UNESCO International Convention Against Doping in Sport through 2025 during a meeting at the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization headquarters in Paris on Friday.
The meeting was attended by representatives from 191 countries.
Abdulaziz Al-Massaad, undersecretary of the Saudi Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, who will fill the UNESCO post, praised the unlimited support of sports offered by the Saudi leadership, and highlighted the directives of Minister of Sports and President of the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal.
Al-Massaad emphasized that the Saudi leadership is keen to ensure the Kingdom’s participation in various international sporting forums and events.
Al-Massaad thanked the Kingdom’s ambassador to France, Fahd bin Mayouf Al-Ruwaili; the secretary-general of the Saudi National Commission for Education, Culture, and Science Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al-Bulahid; and the staff of the Kingdom’s permanent delegation to UNESCO for their efforts.
Saudi Arabia imports about 80 percent of its fruit. But a sustainable farm in Wadi bin Hashbal, in the southwest Asir region, is setting out to reduce that figure by producing up to 60 tons of fruit, field crops and fodder each year.
The sustainable farm, recently recognized by the Guinness World Records as the largest in the world, uses treated water to irrigate crops planted across a 3.2 million square meter area.
Irrigation operations are overseen by specialists and carried out in several stages, minimizing the impact on freshwater resources, and promoting responsible water management practices.
This approach aligns with the Kingdom’s efforts to address water scarcity and ensure the long-term viability of agricultural activities.
The model farm has more than 14,000 trees and houses five air-conditioned greenhouses along with several other structures. It also includes 50 fields designated for growing fruit trees, in addition to plans to reclaim and cultivate 20 additional fields in the future.
A wide range of crops and fruit trees, including lemons, oranges, tangerines, pomegranates, grapes and figs, highlight the Kingdom’s agricultural diversity.
Speaking to Arab News, Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Mujthal, director-general of the Ministry of Environment and Water’s Asir branch, described the research farm as “a new achievement in the name of the nation.”
“It marks a significant milestone in Saudi Arabia toward sustainable farming. This remarkable achievement also showcases the Kingdom’s commitment to agriculture and environmental conservation,” he said.
The farm also shows that “with the right combination of innovation and commitment, a sustainable future is within our reach.”
Al-Mujthal added: “When you’re talking about something this large, the economics work out well. So, it turns out to be a very profitable farm.”
Model farms display modern irrigation systems, as well as the latest cultivation and animal-rearing techniques, acquainting farmers in the region with the best agricultural practices, he said.
The approach is important to provide food for local communities and reduce reliance on imported products.
“Food security is a matter of national security,” he said.
Al-Mujthal said that the sustainable farm expects to produce 10,700 kg of lemons, 3,500 kg of tangerines, 4,200 kg of oranges and 16,000 kg of pomegranate, among other crops.
According to World Wide Fund for Nature, agriculture is the world’s largest industry, employing more than 1 billion people and generating over $1.3 trillion of food annually. Pasture and cropland occupy about half of the planet’s habitable land, and provide habitat and food for a host of species.
Food security is a priority in Saudi Arabia and sustainable agriculture is gaining widespread attention.
Agricultural operations that are sustainably managed can preserve and restore critical habitats, help protect watersheds, and improve soil health and water quality, while unsustainable practices can have serious impacts on people and the environment.
Sustainable development that aims to capitalize on renewable natural resources is one of Saudi Arabia’s main objectives. The Kingdom also seeks to maintain a stable balance of natural resources through safe and effective management methods.
Resource management is becoming more important as the Saudi population grows, driving up demand for agricultural commodities.
As part of Vision 2030, the Kingdom has formulated plans to increase the use of technology, promote organic farming and increase the use of water-saving methods.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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The sustainable farm was recently recognized by the Guinness World Records as the largest in the world. (Supplied)
Following the launch of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 in 2016, the Kingdom is on its way to becoming the world’s biggest construction site with a total investment of SR4.13 trillion ($1.1 trillion) in infrastructure and real estate projects, according to global real estate consultancy Knight Frank.
The real estate firm projected that Riyadh’s population will reach 17 million by 2030, up from about 7.5 million today. The city has unveiled real estate projects worth $104 billion since the Kingdom’s National Transformation Plan launch in 2016.
“Vision 2030 has lit the embers of excitement across the Kingdom, and with NEOM positioned as a crown jewel in the transformative plans, people are eager to be part of history,” Faisal Durrani, partner and head of Middle East research, Knight Frank told Arab News.
Saudi Arabia will easily become the largest construction site in history, with planned construction projects in the Kingdom being over 555,000 residential units, over 275,000 hotel keys, over 4.3 million square meters of retail space, and over 6.1 million square meters of office space, Durrani said.
The consultancy firm is currently monitoring 15 giga-projects in the Kingdom, many of them new standalone supercities, said Harmen de Jong, partner and head of real estate, Strategy& Consulting in the Kingdom.
NEOM is expected to house 9 million residents across 300,000 new homes once completed, making it the largest giga-project announced to date, Jong added.
Among 1,000 Saudi households surveyed, Diriyah Gate came third in popularity as a place to own a home, behind NEOM and The Red Sea Project.
NEOM is radically redefining urban living in resource-poor regions, Durrani said. At the same time, sub-cities like the Octagon, Trojena and the Line will set new benchmarks for luxury living in the area.
Around 30 percent of Saudi homeowners are prepared to spend more than $800,000 on a second home at NEOM. “Developers have their work cut out to satisfy this pent-up demand,” Durrani added.
De Jong said that the construction progress of part of the projects stands at 29 percent, with only $7.5 billion of subprojects being commissioned.
Riyadh’s rebirth
Another head-turning giga-project is the $20 billion Diriyah Gate which will give Riyadh 20,000 homes when it is completed in 2027, creating a city-sized historic district.
Knight Frank estimated that about $2.3 billion had been spent on Diriyah Gate’s construction.
“Not to be outdone, Riyadh’s repositioning as a commercial nerve center of the Kingdom is well underway. And businesses from the world over are already clamoring to be at the center of the Middle East’s second and much-needed global hub,” Durrani said.
Durrani added that the planned development of 2.8 million square meters of world-class office space could not come at a better time with Grade A office occupancy levels hovering around 97 percent across the city.
According to Knight Frank, an international airport worth $147 billion is also set to open shortly. Nearly 74 percent of the $200 billion national infrastructure investment goes toward the new airport.
“The city is also attracting a huge number of internal migrants, and with readily available support to get on the housing ladder, house prices are rising rapidly and currently stand some 26 percent higher than this time last year,” he said.
Well-being hub
The Kingdom is also improving and providing world-class urban environments for its residents with the $500 million Riyadh Sports Boulevard and the $23 billion Green Riyadh, planting 7.5 million trees in the Saudi capital to transform it into a green, vibrant metropolis.
It also extends to the 19,000 hospital beds planned for $13.8 billion, of which $8.6 billion will be spent in Riyadh Province alone.
According to de Jong, over 80 new educational institutions are being constructed for $82 billion.
“What’s more, healthcare, education and well-being sit at the core of the transformative plans, which will contribute to an extraordinary evolution in the Kingdom’s physical realm, making it unrecognizable from what we see today by the end of the decade,” Durrani said.
