Kuwaitis embrace the digital future through stronger social media engagement

The Ministry of State for Youth Affairs, created in 2012, is charged with designing and implementing youth-oriented strategies to empower young people - the majority stakeholders of the nation’s future.
This approach has catalyzed action across sectors, and includes stakeholders from the government, private sector, as well as civic society, with a focus on prioritizing youth on every level.

Within the framework of this mandate, Kuwait is steadily making the switch from analog to digital governance. The government is determined to keep pace with social media usage as a far stronger means for direct feedback and youth engagement.

At the core of this approach is the Hashtag Kuwait Conference (#Kuwait), a country-wide information and dialogue initiative designed to reach out to the nation’s youth. So far, it has been heavily subscribed to and expanded to the most popularly used social media sites and apps in the country.

“We are looking toward a bigger role for youth, especially those who are active on the social media sites, to immunize their peers and to partake in state building. The Hashtag Kuwait Conference is a clear message and demonstration that we
are heightening our engagement across digital and social media platforms. We recognize that this is how the youth really communicate and it is our job to facilitate that and ensure that we can also operate and offer services across those
platforms,” says Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Homoud Al Sabah, Minister of Information and Minister of State for Youth Affairs.