The Foreign Service Journal, May 2018

42 MAY 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL hub for trade and finance. Toward that end, Riyadh commits in the plan to reform visa processes, remove licensing obstacles for enterprises of all sizes and improve financial services. Transforming Saudi Society Vision 2030 is an aspirational document. It’s unlikely that all the ambitious goals it lays out can or will be achieved over the next decade. The plan is frank about the need to open up Saudi society on many levels if economic reforms have any hope of succeeding. First and foremost among the Saudi traditions that pose obsta- cles to economic reform and modernization are those related to gender and women’s roles in society. MBS created a domestic and international stir last fall when he announced that the government would drop its ban on women driving beginning in June 2018. The royal decree immediately removed one of the most conten- tious issues in Saudi society. Although actual implementation has not yet begun, the press is reporting that many young women are eagerly discussing which model of car they plan to buy when the new laws are implemented. That decision was followed by other steps to relax restrictions on women’s freedoms. The government has already announced that women will no longer be prohibited from attending public sporting events, and a senior Saudi cleric recently suggested that women would no longer be required to wear the abaya and niqab (full veil) when out in public. Other elements of the traditional, “male guardianship” system remain intact, although the govern- ment has pledged to permit women to travel abroad without a male family member accompanying them. In many ways, these recent initiatives to enhance women’s roles in society are a lagging indicator; Saudi women have been making steady inroads into historically male-only preserves for years. By 2014, well over half of Saudis graduating with bach- elor’s degrees were females, though the percentage of women seeking post-graduate degrees remained among the lowest of any Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member-state. Vision 2030 seeks to increase the proportion of Saudi women in the workforce—already rising, particularly in the retail sector— to 30 percent by 2030. To help make that happen, Riyadh is drop- ping the requirement for gender segregation in the workplace. Beyond gender issues, the crown prince’s ambitious plans to move the Saudi economy toward a private-sector focus will require sweeping changes to the country’s traditional cradle-to- grave social welfare system. Interestingly, young Saudi women appear far more interested in finding careers in the private sector than their male counterparts, who often prefer the security and better pay and benefits of public-sector jobs. In an effort to change that dynamic, the government has pledged to equalize pay and benefits packages across the private and public sectors, and encourage entrepreneurship and enter- prise opportunities. Unusual for an OECD country, unemploy- ment is higher for young, educated Saudis than it is for their less-educated peers. Recognizing that, the plan emphasizes the need to strengthen higher education. Thus the government has proposed to re-examine the curricula of institutions of higher education to ensure that they are producing graduates with the skills the private sector demands. In a further attempt to steer more young Saudis toward careers in the private sector, the government recently announced that by the end of the year some businesses in the retail sector would no longer be permitted to hire non-Saudis. While past attempts at promoting “Saudization” of the economy have fallen well short of U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis meets with Saudia Arabia’s King Salman bin Adulaziz, at right, in Riyadh on April 19, 2017. WIKIMEDIACOMMONS