For the purpose of this evidence, governance refers to the arrangements (whether formal or informal) that determine how decisions are made and implemented, providing the strategic direction for the entity, ensuring the achievement of its objectives, managing its risks, and using its resources responsibly to maintain the values of the state when facing challenges and changes.

This guiding evidence aims to enhance and highlight the concept of governance in all public entities, unify it, and promote the application of its most prominent principles and practices in accordance with their missions, competencies, and nature of work, and in alignment with the laws and public policies of the state that aim to improve the efficiency of public spending, achieve optimal resource utilization, and reduce financial waste of the state’s general budget.

The importance of governance is based on disclosure, transparency, integrity, fairness, accountability, and sustainability; to limit the abuse of power for private purposes, by subjecting the sector's activities to a set of legislations and policies aimed at regulating and monitoring its operations, to protect its assets and achieve quality and excellence in performance on one hand, and to comply with disclosure and transparency standards on the other hand, as well as to achieve a level of efficiency and cooperation among individuals and institutions to create a supportive and stimulating social environment for development, growth, and innovation.

To implement an effective governance system, these principles are based on promoting the concept of good governance in public entities and encouraging its application according to best practices and international standards. These principles are as follows:

• - Rule of Law: The performance of entities in accordance with laws and regulations, and taking necessary measures to prevent abuse or misuse of authority by those in power, as well as documenting decisions and internal policies.

• - Integrity and Ethical Standards: Ensuring that members of public entities adhere to work ethics and values of integrity and honesty, and values that promote behaviors of trust and integrity, making decisions and taking actions in a manner that serves the public interest, with policies and procedures in place to ensure necessary actions are taken in cases of non-compliance.

• - Oversight and Accountability: Ensuring the public entity's ability to apply various forms of oversight, monitoring, and follow-up on the actions of its members, and subjecting the public entity to internal oversight according to the internal control system, as well as external accountability by the relevant oversight authorities.

• - Disclosure and Transparency: Enhancing the transparency of the public entity regarding its policies, decisions, procedures, strategic plans, and resource utilization, with a clear mechanism for classifying confidential information, disclosing public information, and establishing effective communication channels with stakeholders to enhance their trust.

• - Rights of Stakeholders: Having policies and practices within the public entity that ensure respect for the rights of stakeholders related to its operations, including its members and stakeholders, with the public entity evaluating compliance with and adherence to those policies and ensuring their alignment with relevant laws.

• - Efficiency and Performance Effectiveness: Ensuring the optimal use of available financial and human resources for the entity to carry out its tasks as required, and ensuring that programs and projects achieve the desired objectives in accordance with its strategy, achieving the principle of efficiency and performance effectiveness, through proper planning, setting achievable and measurable strategies and objectives, and establishing performance measurement indicators for monitoring and evaluating work.

• - Leadership: Establishing sustainable strategies and formulating policies and expectations - by the supervisory management - that serve the public interest and align with the public policies of the public entity and the state, enhancing the principles of good governance, and working to separate responsibilities through clear job tasks for both the supervisory management and the executive responsible and members, selecting individuals with competence, integrity, credibility, and experience to ensure their independence in performing their tasks, without influence on their decisions, and establishing a clear and transparent mechanism for appointing and evaluating leadership.

• - Sustainability: Establishing a strategy and objectives that ensure the sustainability of the entity and its operations, enhancing its ability to positively impact the environment, society, and economic development, ensuring its permanence, through the establishment of policies and standards that align with national sustainability policies, monitoring their implementation and reporting on it.

Governance in public entities plays an important and pivotal role in enhancing the performance of the entity and achieving its objectives for which it was established. The precise definition of the roles and powers of the supervisory management, the executive officer, the executive management, and the staff of the entity, along with careful selection of these individuals, and the existence of professional standards for evaluating their performance, the performance of the entity, and its outputs, is a crucial element for the success of the entity in carrying out its missions and achieving its public objectives. Additionally, the establishment of the principle of transparency in work enhances the performance of the public entity and supports its efficiency and effectiveness.

From this concept, it is clear that the role of governance is to achieve alignment between the duties and rights of the public entity and the rights of beneficiaries and stakeholders, and to ensure the achievement of the entity's strategies and objectives in particular, and the strategic plans of the state in general.

- Enhance the capacity of public entities to perform their tasks and achieve their objectives in alignment with public policies and national goals.

- Strengthen the trust of stakeholders in the public entity and protect their rights.

- Enhance and activate oversight, and establish internal controls and regulations for the entity.

- Ensure declaration, transparency, fairness, accountability, and obligation.

- Promote the principle of sustainability in the entity's operations to achieve national goals.

- Enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the supervisory management's performance within the entity.

- Establish professional standards for evaluating the entity's performance and outputs.

- Clearly define the roles and powers of the supervisory management and the executive management to ensure a separation between tasks, powers, and responsibilities.

Governance requires a focus on the organizational elements that lead the entity to achieve its strategic objectives, by designing integrated organizational structures and operational frameworks that are flexible and aligned with the entity's goals and the state's public policies.

This guideline serves as a first step towards achieving sound governance in public entities, which necessitates providing public entities with the opportunity to enhance a culture of proper governance and gradual correction, including clarifying authorities, separating powers, establishing preliminary performance standards, ensuring the efficiency of internal control systems, and evaluating performance, as well as setting a timeline that outlines the stages of correction and the application of governance in public entities; all of which contribute to improving the outputs of the entity and enhancing its performance efficiency, thereby reflecting on the overall performance of the national economy.

Accordingly, the responsibility for implementing this public governance is entrusted initially to the supervisory management, then to the executive responsible and the executive management, and finally to the staff and employees of the public entity. To implement this, the entity must identify the unit or organizational department responsible for applying what is stated in this guideline through the practices and procedures followed in the public entity, with the importance of its direct connection to the supervisory management or the executive responsible in the entity or their delegate based on the authority matrix in the public entity. This (unit or organizational department) is concerned with assessing the current state of governance in the entity and determining what tools it needs to apply it clearly and in writing, and those tools should include, for example, controls, procedures, and work models that emphasize the application of governance in the public entity, with ongoing periodic and regular evaluation, setting performance measurement indicators, and preparing a detailed report on the evaluation results and the impediments faced by the entity and ways to resolve them; and submitting this to the supervisory management or the executive responsible as appropriate, in order to enhance a culture of proper governance and gradual correction, which would improve the outputs of the public entity and raise its performance efficiency, thus directly reflecting on the overall performance of the state.