Alignment
One programme,
two frameworks
Every Torchbearer programme is mapped twice: to named Sustainable Development Goal targets, and to the national agenda our partners are accountable to. Same work, same evidence, reported in whichever language the reader needs.
Why it matters
Alignment is
not decoration
Most organisations display the Sustainable Development Goals as a wall of coloured squares. It communicates nothing, because a goal is not a commitment — a target is. There are 169 of them, each with defined indicators, and naming the specific ones you deliver against is a materially different act from displaying a logo.
The second mapping matters just as much. An institution operating under a national framework has to report into that framework, not into ours. If a programme's evidence arrives already expressed in the terms that institution is accountable for, it can be used directly. If it does not, somebody has to translate it — and things get lost in translation, usually the rigour.
So we map every indicator to both, at the design stage, before anything is delivered.
The mapping
Six SDG targets, the indicator we actually measure against each, and the corresponding national framework pillar.
| SDG target | What the target commits to | Our indicator | Saudi framework |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.2 | Adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene, with explicit attention to the needs of women and girls | Proportion with sustained access to safe products at fixed-interval follow-up | Vision 2030 — Quality of Life |
| 4.1 / 4.5 | Completion of quality education; elimination of gender disparity in access | School days retained per participant per cycle, against baseline | Vision 2030 — Human Capability Development |
| 3.7 | Universal access to reproductive health information and care | Health-literacy score, intake versus endline on an identical instrument | Vision 2030 — Quality of Life |
| 5.1 | End all forms of discrimination against women and girls | Reduction in reported activity restriction — school, work, movement | Vision 2030 — Human Capability Development |
| 12.5 | Substantially reduce waste generation through prevention and reuse | Single-use waste displaced per participant per year, modelled on observed reuse | Saudi Green Initiative — circular economy and waste reduction |
| 13.1 | Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate hazards | Households reached with hygiene and water provision within 30 days of a flood response | Saudi Green Initiative — climate adaptation |
Where a target's official indicator is not measurable at programme scale, we say so and state the proxy we use instead, rather than reporting against an indicator we did not collect.
The context
we work in
Publicly stated positions that shape what institutional partners in the region are accountable for. Sources are linked.
A sector being professionalised
Saudi Arabia's non-profit sector is a named Vision 2030 priority with its own regulator, the National Center for Non-Profit Sector. Sector value has grown from roughly SAR 8 billion before 2016 to approximately SAR 73 billion in 2024 — around 1.55% of GDP — and the volunteering target of one million was passed six years early, reaching 1.2 million by the end of 2024.
The strategic emphasis has since moved from expanding the sector to professionalising it: governance, measurable impact, and self-sustaining models. That is precisely the gap a delivery-and- verification capability fills.
Sources: Vision 2030 — NCNP strategy · SPA · Atlantic Council
A hardening disclosure environment
The Saudi Green Initiative sets the national decarbonisation agenda — a stated reduction of 278 million tonnes of CO₂ annually by 2030 and net zero by 2060. Alongside it, sustainability disclosure has moved from guidance towards expectation: CMA ESG guidelines from 2019, the Saudi Exchange framework from 2021, a 2025 CMA framework for green, social and sustainability-linked instruments, and signalled alignment with ISSB standards.
In 2024, 94 listed companies published sustainability reports, and roughly 65% of the top 100 by revenue disclose ESG information. The practical consequence is straightforward: a growing number of institutions now have to evidence social and environmental outcomes to a standard that activity reporting does not meet.
Sources: Tadawul ESG Disclosure Guidelines · CMA / ISSB alignment
Where we
deliver
Two geographies, chosen for different reasons, running against the same method and the same evidence standard.
Pakistan
Among the most climate-exposed countries in the world, with recurring flood and heat events that reach the least-resourced households first. Long supply chains, thin formal service coverage, and populations that do not appear on any distribution list.
It is a genuinely hard delivery environment, and that is the point: a model proven here transfers downwards in difficulty rather than upwards. It also makes rigorous measurement affordable at a scale where it would otherwise be treated as a luxury.
Saudi Arabia
Where the mandates, the frameworks and the institutions sit — a non-profit sector being deliberately professionalised, a national decarbonisation agenda with numbers attached, and a disclosure environment moving from guidance to expectation.
It is also where the demand is for exactly what most implementers cannot supply: programmes designed against named targets and verified to a standard that survives an audit.