Sport - Untapped potential to help meet the MDGs

Addis Ababa, 9 June - As the World Cup kicks off today, the event serves once again to highlight the close relationship between sport and development, offering a vast potential to tap into the euphoria created by the spectacle and channel it towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

Recognising the power of sport, the UN and FIFA have issued a joint statement calling on billions of people worldwide who will view the World Cup, to "harness the magic of football" in the quest for peace and development.

"Football is a global language," the statement says. "It can bridge social, cultural and religious divides...That is why the UN is using football as a tool in our work to reach the Millennium Development Goals."

So how exactly can sport help achieve the MDGs? The World Cup can't put an end to wars, but by bringing a variety of rich and poor countries onto a worldwide stage it can raise awareness of parallel issues.

Psychologists explain that after work, sport is the largest form of mass civil participation transcending all kinds of traditional barriers. According to the UK-based International Business Leaders Forum, sport "attracts immense audiences and has great economic influence, power and reach into communities and countries".

"Sport is a powerful neutralizer with an accepted universal language and rules, and can be a potent unifying symbol," says the IBLF.

"Sport is not a panacea for development problems but its ability to help change attitudes and enhance people's choices means that it can play an important role in achieving global development targets such as the Millennium Development Goals."

As sport has a captive audience among the youth, it can have great pulling power in raising awareness of issues such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic which is decimating the 15-24 age group. Or in boosting education and gender issues, removing stigma, and improving health and vitality. Above all it is inclusive. No-one has to be left out.

So sport goes far beyond a game. The IBLF lists a number of sport's positive attributes. It teaches life skills such as communication, cooperation and leadership, promotes respect and fair play, encourages participation of marginalized groups, provides a vehicle for delivering a range of messages, improves fitness and reduces the risk of non-communicable diseases, attracts interest from the media and is well understood by the general public. It is also well-suited to all kinds of partnerships including government, business and civil society.

But some sports for development organizations stress the need for deeper government commitment to sport as a tool in the fight against poverty. In Africa, as on many continents, the power of sport still has to be acknowledged at the highest levels and mainstreamed into government policy.

"Engaging deeper government leadership is essential to ensure that sport and physical activity are incorporated into country development policies and agendas, and specifically to use sport as a tool to address the issues of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the challenges of achieving peace," says the NGO Right to Play.

Right to Play is one of several international athlete-driven organizations pushing the notion of sport for development. It uses sport and play with children in refugee camps, former child fighters and orphans to attain goals such as life-saving HIV awareness and preventative education.

On a recent visit to Ethiopia, a group of seven international athletes worked with disadvantaged and disabled children teaching them sports and games, as well as training local coaches to continue the work. One of the athletes, Canadian Olympic gold medallist Clara Hughes, summed up her experience by first acknowledging her anxieties about travelling to an unknown destination. Arriving in Addis Ababa, she said, the rampant poverty was "like being hit by a truck".

"I knew these young people would hold life experience beyond the realm of my imagination," she states on the Right to Play website. "The state of poverty, disability and stigma these kids face in their daily lives were all foreign to my privileged existence in the western world."

As time passed, she described how the children evolved and gained confidence through the sports programmes which, she said, gave them a sense of hope and security.

"This is far more important than any gold medal - even an Olympic gold medal," she concluded.

Click here for IBLF report:
http://www.iblf.org/docs/SharedGoals.pdf

Click here for Right to Play website:
http://www.righttoplay.com/site/PageServer