Sustainable Regional Development through Safe Construction Governance in Vision 2030 Giga-Projects

Abstract

Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 giga-projects are reshaping regional development through new tourism, mobility, housing, logistics, heritage, entertainment, energy and smart-city assets. Their scale, simultaneity and geographic dispersion make safety governance more than a site compliance function: it becomes a development capability that protects workers, stabilizes delivery, strengthens investor confidence and translates construction expenditure into durable social value. This review synthesizes recent literature and institutional evidence from 2020 to 2025 to examine how safe construction governance can support sustainable regional development in Vision 2030 giga-project environments. The review adopts an integrative narrative method, combining peer-reviewed studies on Saudi construction safety climate, occupational health and safety management systems, digital safety technologies, megaproject governance and sustainability reporting with official Saudi regulatory and program sources. The paper proposes a Safe Construction Governance for Regional Value framework built around five linked domains: leadership accountability, risk-based planning, worker welfare, digital assurance and regional value integration. Findings show that the strongest safety outcomes are likely where governance is embedded early in project selection, design, procurement, contractor onboarding, work packaging and benefit realization, rather than treated as an inspection activity after mobilization. The review concludes that Saudi giga-projects can become international exemplars when occupational safety, environmental protection and community development are governed as one integrated value system.