Administration Observatory in the Arab Region · Citizens VoicePressSearch
Administration Observatory in the Arab Region

Home / Domains / Social opportunities

Leisure and community participation

Role of government: Limited   Shaped by public administration only at the margin.

44.5Access · regional mean
51.1Experience · regional mean
−6.6Access–experience gap
−0.82How closely access and experience move together across countries (correlation)
0.74How closely this domain follows the overall index (correlation)
What the survey asks: access

Presence of community groups, clubs and organisations, of leisure and sports facilities; membership of groups; unpaid help given to others; frequency of leisure activities.

What the survey asks: experience

Views on the range of opportunities to take part, to volunteer and to use leisure time; satisfaction with leisure activities.

Findings

Access ranges from 34.5 (Tunisia) to 57.7 (Iraq) and experience from 37.3 (Iraq) to 81.3 (Tunisia). Across states the two measures move in opposite directions (r = −0.82), the strongest inverse relationship in the index.

Yemen and Iraq record membership and activity (57.5 and 57.7) that residents do not experience as satisfying (41.3 and 37.3). Tunisia, Lebanon, Morocco and Egypt record the reverse: limited recorded participation (34.5, 36.7, 34.6, 38.1) and much higher satisfaction (81.3, 61.4, 56.8, 53.6). The Tunisian gap, −46.8, is the largest negative gap in the index.

What the gap may indicate (inference, not measured)Where participation is recorded but not valued, the constraint may be the quality, safety or cost of what exists. Where satisfaction runs ahead of participation, expectations may have adapted to limited provision. The survey does not distinguish these explanations.
Administrative implicationMunicipal and youth administrations can monitor participation rates rather than facilities built, and use the access measure to locate material gaps that satisfaction data would hide.

Citizens voice

“I have no confidence in the work of NGOs”

Lebanon

“Providing assistance to those who need help”

Yemen

What respondents said they would change. Open-ended answers as transcribed in English by the survey team, lightly edited for punctuation; attributed by country only.

Figure 1Leisure and community participation: the gap is widest in Iraq; experience runs ahead in Tunisia

AccessExperienceDotted lines: regional averages

Iraq57.7 · 37.3Yemen57.5 · 41.3Saudi Arabia47.8 · 41.5Qatar47.4 · 42.7Kuwait46.7 · 47.7Jordan43.5 · 47.8Egypt38.1 · 53.6Morocco34.6 · 56.8Lebanon36.7 · 61.4Tunisia34.5 · 81.3

Sorted by the gap between access and experience.

A-SCOPE MENA, Arab Access and Experience Dataset 2026, ten states, N = 1,861. Wave 1 · Release 1.0 · September 2026.Image (PNG)
Figure 2Leisure and community participation: where access is higher, experience tends to be lower

Provision–experience mismatchMaterial-access deficitAdministrative interface deficitCapacity under crisisIntermediate alignment

Dashed line: access equals experienceDotted lines: regional averages

303040405050606070708080Experience higher than accessAccess higher than experienceAccess →Experience →TunisiaLebanonMoroccoEgyptJordanKuwaitQatarSaudi ArabiaYemenIraq
A-SCOPE MENA, Arab Access and Experience Dataset 2026, ten states, N = 1,861. Wave 1 · Release 1.0 · September 2026.Image (PNG)