Dawani Signals: first edition, September 2026

The summary in thirty seconds

Saudi early-childhood indicators rose within a single year, according to GASTAT, Early Childhood Development and Child Well-Being Statistics 2025. Even so, the book gap at home stays wider than the screen gap. The same edition reports that about 60% of children under five have no children's books. Against that, 90.0% of children live in a positive and stimulating home learning environment, so the shortage is in the material available to the family more than in the family's willingness. The Ministry of Education, on its early childhood page, publishes an explicit target to raise kindergarten enrolment from 17% to 90% by 2030. On the legal side, Saudi law regulates the data of those lacking legal capacity through the legal guardian's consent, not through a dedicated children's article. What we did not find is also substantial: no published share of children in the total population, and no child online-safety page at the Communications, Space and Technology Commission. So every domain below carries a stated evidence grade, together with a line saying what could not be verified in it. Those grades are Dawani's own scale rather than an official classification, as is the Dawani Child-Safe Design framework: an independent Dawani framework, not a government standard.

GASTAT publishes time bands rather than one number (evidence grade: A). In Early Childhood Development and Child Well-Being Statistics 2025, 35.1% of children aged five to seven use digital devices for one to two hours a day. In the same edition, 11.4% of them do not use these devices at all. The 2024 publication did print a single headline, that about 90% of children of the same age use these devices every day. The newer edition does not print that headline, and we do not derive it by subtraction, because an unprinted number is not published here.

On the guidance side, WHO’s 2019 guidelines recommend no screen time at all for infants under one year (evidence grade: C). The same guidelines cap sedentary screen time at one hour for two-year-olds and for children aged three to four, with less being better. The 2020 guidelines recommend at least an average of 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous physical activity for ages five to seventeen. The American Academy of Pediatrics, by contrast, sets no hour count at all in its Family Media Use Plan. It recommends screen-free zones, a "one screen at a time" rule, and autoplay and notifications turned off.

The design decision we take from that difference: do not build a timer that measures the length of the hour, build a reading of what happened inside it. The Screen Value Score asks about making, moving, talking, learning and the ability to stop, and the post screen value, not screen time explains why a time metric alone misjudges an experience.

What we could not verify for this edition: the hour figures in the 2021 Common Sense Census. Its file was fetched but its text could not be read, leaving only the title and publication date. The 2025 GASTAT edition carries no combined daily-use figure, and this publication reports nothing for ages above seven. None of these sources says what the child actually does inside the hour, which is the question that matters to us.

According to GASTAT's 2025 edition, about 60% of children under five have no children's books (evidence grade: A). The same edition reports that 31.0% of them have one or two books, and that the share holding three or more is about 9%. In the 2024 publication, the share with no books at all was about 66%. The gap is still wide, but it narrowed by roughly seven points in a year, and the trend is what deserves writing down, not disaster language.

That figure should be read next to another from the same edition: 90.0% of children aged 36 to 59 months live in a positive and stimulating home learning environment. The indicator’s definition is published in the bulletin itself and covers an adult sharing the reading of picture books, telling stories, singing, going out of the home, playing, naming objects, counting and drawing. In other words the adult is present in the Saudi home; the material they read from is what is missing.

The design decision: build the story so that it never assumes a home library. Audio that can be heard, paper that can be printed, an object that can be held, and a start that requires no account and no permanent connection. From outcome to experience turns a broad reading goal into an observable behaviour inside a situation the child lives, and the post the Arabic childhood content gap sets out what is missing in the material itself.

What we could not verify: the register holds no published figure for how often Saudi homes read aloud, nor for how many Arabic children's titles are published each year. The Ministry of Culture launched its Child Culture Platform in November 2024 under the «ثقافة الطفل» initiative. We take that from the Saudi Press Agency announcement rather than from reading the platform itself. We also do not know how many books reach a home that buys none, nor by which route they arrive.

According to GASTAT's 2025 edition, 17.3% of children aged 36 to 59 months were enrolled in an early childhood education programme (evidence grade: A). The share was about 10% in the 2024 publication. The jump is not pure growth: the edition states plainly that enrolment indicators rest on Ministry of Education register data for the 2024 to 2025 school year. A change of source is part of the explanation, so the sentence must not be written in the language of doubling.

In the same edition, participation in organised learning one year before the official primary entry age reached 73.0%, after 64.03% in the previous edition. The Ministry of Education defines early childhood as ages three to eight, and its General Directorate of Early Childhood serves children from age three to grade three. The ministry publishes «معايير التعلم المبكر النمائية» (Early Learning and Development Standards) for ages three to six, a descriptive guide to expected knowledge, behaviours and skills. It targets raising kindergarten enrolment from 17% to 90% by 2030 (evidence grade: C, since this is a published target rather than a measurement).

The design decision: the year before school is the clearest window of work, and the home is a partner in it rather than a recipient. Anyone building for this stage should measure against the published Early Learning and Development Standards, not an imported framework. The KPI Translator turns an attendance metric into a child-outcome metric, while the post beyond screens in early childhood looks at what early learning is away from the device.

What we could not verify: the Human Capability Development Program page on the Saudi Vision 2030 site refused access on four separate paths the same day. So we name the programme without a link, and attribute no numeric target to it. The ministry's page also gives no baseline year for the 17% figure, so we tie it to no particular year.

Per the September 2022 launch announcement of the National Gaming and Esports Strategy, the strategy targets a contribution of about 50 billion riyals to GDP, directly and indirectly. The same announcement names a target of 39,000 new jobs by 2030. It also targets producing more than thirty globally competitive games in the Kingdom’s studios (evidence grade: C). These are stated targets rather than achieved results, and the announcement is four years old; both facts belong in any sentence that quotes it.

The more important observation for anyone building for children is that the announcement mentions neither children nor their safety. A studio therefore cannot borrow a safeguard from a strategy that contains none. The safeguard that does exist in Saudi text is the Child Protection Law. It counts exposing a child to scenes unsuitable for their age among the forms of abuse. Its Article 12, as amended, prohibits producing any work directed at children that would encourage behavioural or intellectual deviance. Age-appropriateness is a legal question, not a matter of taste.

The design decision: publish an age sheet alongside the game, saying who it is for, what appears in it and what does not. Then test the retention loop against the harm question before the growth question. The Child Product Safety Score checks that against the axes of the Dawani Child-Safe Design framework, and the post retention without addiction separates a child who returns because they want to from one who returns because they cannot stop.

What we could not verify: the strategy page on the Saudi Vision 2030 site refused access in both Arabic and English, so we cite the Saudi Press Agency announcement alone. Investment figures circulating about this sector were not fetched from a primary source and are not published here.

Under UNICEF's Policy Guidance on AI for Children, version 2.0 of November 2021, nine child-centred requirements are set (evidence grade: C). They are: support children's development and well-being; ensure inclusion of and for children; prioritise fairness and non-discrimination; protect children's data and privacy; and ensure safety. Then: provide transparency, explainability and accountability; empower governments and businesses with knowledge of children's rights; prepare children for developments in AI; and create an enabling environment. We name the version number because a newer edition with ten requirements is referred to elsewhere and was not fetched.

We found no published Saudi figure on children’s use of AI tools. The law nonetheless applies to the data whatever model processes it. Article 10 of the Personal Data Protection Law limits collection to the data subject directly. It also limits processing to the purposes of collection, subject to the exceptions listed in the same article. Article 11 requires personal data to be limited to the minimum necessary for the purpose of collection, and destroyed without undue delay once it is no longer needed.

The design decision: declare the role before any line of dialogue. A tutor explains, corrects and withdraws; a companion invokes feeling and asks to be returned to, and the difference is small in the name and large in the risk. The AI Child-Risk Classifier asks about memory, persuasion, epistemic authority and sensitive disclosure, and the post AI tutor or AI friend traces how a product slides from the tutor role into the companion role with no decision ever taken.

What we could not verify: the text of General Comment No. 25 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child could not be fetched on five separate paths the same day. We name the committee and its document without quoting a paragraph or giving a link. We also hold not one Saudi figure on the ages of these tools' users, or on what they use them for.

Saudi law regulates the data of those lacking legal capacity through the legal guardian’s consent, not through a dedicated children’s article (evidence grade: C). Article 5 of the Personal Data Protection Law provides that the Regulations set the terms for obtaining the guardian’s consent where the data subject lacks legal capacity in whole or in part. Article 13 of the Implementing Regulations requires the guardian to act in the data subject’s interest. The same article requires appropriate means of verifying the guardianship, forbids consent that harms the data subject’s interests, and requires enabling the data subject to exercise their rights once they attain capacity. Copy that says "Saudi law requires parental consent for children’s data" therefore overshoots the text.

The strongest text in favour of language a child can understand is Article 4 of the Implementing Regulations. The controller must provide the required information in appropriate language where it knows the data subject lacks legal capacity. Alongside it, Article 12 of the Law requires a privacy policy to be made available before collection. The National Cybersecurity Authority publishes a parental-controls page as awareness material for parents, not as a regulatory control on products. Internationally, Responsible Data for Children names seven principles, among them "Purpose-Driven", "Proportional" and "Prevention of Harms across the Data Life Cycle".

The design decision: verify the guardianship at sign-up, write the notice in language the child can read, and open a door for the account to be reclaimed once capacity is attained. The Data Minimisation Canvas asks what actually breaks in the product if a field is never collected, the Dawani Child-Safe Design framework gathers these decisions into reviewable axes, and the post does a children's app need an account looks at the cheapest decision that lowers risk.

What we could not verify: every path to the UK Information Commissioner's Age Appropriate Design Code refused access the same day. We name the code without a link, and quote neither its standards nor their number. The OECD Recommendation on Children in the Digital Environment was fetched only far enough to fix its reference number and year, not its list of principles.

According to GASTAT's 2025 edition, 90.0% of children aged 36 to 59 months live in a positive and stimulating home learning environment (evidence grade: A). The share was about 83% in the 2024 publication. The indicator measures acts an adult takes part in, not a general feeling of concern. The meeting point between child and adult already exists in the Saudi home, and it is the place worth designing for.

The Family Affairs Council’s strategy names the objective «تعزيز المهارات الشخصية والمهنية للأطفال», on children’s personal and professional skills. It also names a pillar covering protection at home, in the surrounding environment and in cyberspace. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screen-free zones and checked privacy settings without setting a number of hours. The Child Rights by Design principles, from 5Rights Foundation and the Digital Futures for Children centre, name eleven principles including Consultation, Participation and Agency (evidence grade: C).

The design decision: design the moment for the pair, not for the child alone. Build for the child alone and the adult becomes a monitor; build for the adult alone and the child becomes a spectator. The Dawani Child-Safe Design framework treats parental partnership as an axis to review rather than a slogan, and it is an independent Dawani framework, not a government standard; the post designing safe experiences for kids shows how that appears in the interface itself.

What we could not verify: no published Saudi figure exists for co-viewing or co-play between child and adult. The figures for the parent-training project announced by the Global Cybersecurity Forum with UNICEF are global rather than Saudi, so they are not written here as a local achievement.

In August 2024 the Family Affairs Council issued the guide «الحياة مهارة» (Life is a Skill), one of the Human Capability Development Program initiatives within the National Family Strategy package. It targets parents, for building life skills in children aged seven to eighteen (evidence grade: C). The age band here is not early childhood, so the guide cannot be used as evidence of attention to the preschool years.

The Ministry of Education runs a personal-safety programme to protect children from abuse, with AGFUND and UNICEF, and uses the ECERS scale to improve kindergarten learning environments. In Europe, the Better Internet for Kids strategy (BIK+), adopted by the European Commission on 11 May 2022, rests on three pillars. They are: safe digital experiences; digital empowerment, so all children acquire the skills they need; and active participation, giving children a say in the digital environment.

The design decision: a skill only becomes real when an observable behaviour describes it. Write the outcome, then the behaviour, then the situation, then the success indicator and the guardrail, and only then choose the mechanic. From outcome to experience does exactly that in five steps, and the post measuring adolescent impact explains why skill measurement fails when it measures satisfaction instead of behaviour.

What we could not verify: programme names circulating for the Family Affairs Council, such as «المدرسة الآمنة» and «الأمان على الإنترنت». They appeared on none of the council's pages fetched today, so we do not name them. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology publishes no named children's programme, and the figures on its homepage carry no published reference year, so they are not repeated.

Per W3Techs, retrieved 6 September 2026, Arabic is the content language of 0.6% of websites whose content language is known, while English is the content language of about half of them (evidence grade: C). The figure is one measurement service’s reading, updated daily, so it always carries its date. Its denominator is websites whose content language is known, not all websites. We also do not compare it with the share of Arabic speakers in the world, because the two do not measure the same thing.

There is Arabic work under way. The Ministry of Culture launched the Child Culture Platform in November 2024 under its «ثقافة الطفل» initiative, with sections including «الكاتب الصغير» and «لنكتشف الثقافة معاً». The National Gaming and Esports Strategy targets producing more than thirty globally competitive games in the Kingdom’s studios. The space is not empty, but it is narrower than the appetite of a child whose day is spent in interfaces written in another language.

"Arabic first" means the experience is written in Arabic from the storyboard onward, rather than translated into it once finished. A late translation keeps the rhythm of the sentence and the logic of direction foreign, even when every word is correct. The Child Product Safety Score checks language fit and age fit together, and the post Arabic first is not translating the screen sets out what breaks when Arabic arrives last.

What we could not verify: the register holds no published count of Arabic children's apps or titles. The Child Culture Platform itself was not read, because the ministry's page is rendered in JavaScript, so we cite the Saudi Press Agency announcement instead.

What the register permits us to say about scale is little and specific. According to GASTAT, Population Estimates Publication 2024, the Kingdom's population is estimated at 35.3 million in mid-2024 (evidence grade: A). In the same publication, the 0 to 14 age group is 33.5% of the Saudi population and 8.6% of the non-Saudi population. It prints no combined share of that age group in the total population, so we write “about a third of the Saudi population” and no more.

This edition names gaps, not markets. It contains no market size, no forecast and no demand estimate, because any such sentence would need a verified row in the register and there is none. An opening here has a procedural definition: a published target or a published figure, facing a product that does not exist and that a small team could start. The ordering of the ten gaps below is our own reading (evidence grade: D), not a finding of any source.

The design decision: start from a stated target belonging to a body that can be cited, then translate it into an observable behaviour before any talk of a platform or a technology. From outcome to experience is the shortest route to that, and the post from awareness campaign to behaviour tells how a campaign is lost when reach is the only thing measured.

What we could not verify: the circulating share of children in the total population appears on no GASTAT page we could find, so it is not published. Non-profit sector size figures could not be read, because the Arabic indicator labels break on extraction from the annual report, leaving only the report's name and year.