"Development and Sport"
Development co-operation and sport: What may appear to be an unusual combination at first glance has already become a reality in project activities. For years, sport institutions like the German National Olympic Committee as well as development organisations have been applying sport to promote development. So far, however, the potential of sport to support development has only played a minor role in terms of public and expert awareness.
The UN International Year of Sport and Physical Education 2005 gave the impetus to draw attention world-wide to the potential sport has as a means of development co-operation. The 2006 Football World Cup in Germany is a chance to take the ball, since this mega sport event offers the opportunity to sensitise a wide public for development topics and continue dialogue among specialists on the role sport has in development topics. What are the prospects for the team of sport and development co-operation?
Photo: German National Olympic Committee
Photo: Handicap International
Football for development and peace?
Partnership between development and sport
The UN Year of Sport 2005
“Sport is the best school of life,” Adolf Ogi, Special Adviser to the United Nations’ Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace is convinced. With this message, he campaigned in the International Year of Sport throughout the world for the positive impulses that sport can give. Whether in the fields of education or health, peace or development and integration, sport imparts skills and values, teaches people to handle victory and defeat and respect opponents and rules, develop a team spirit and resolve conflicts peacefully. Thus, sport can make an important contribution to attaining the Millennium Goals. In a Call for Action, the Final Conference of the UN Year of Sport in Magglingen stressed these potentials and demanded that all responsible bodies in society do more to promote successful links between sport and development.
www.un.org/sport2005Football for development and peace?
Picture: Bread for the World
Whether it be with tin cans, plastic lumps or a leather ball, people love playing football in countless streets and squares world-wide. And the children in Liberia play according to the same rules as their peers in Germany. Sport really is a universal language that everyone understands. It has a unique capacity to cross borders and get people together.
International understanding and positive social aspects are countered by the dark side of the world’s most popular type of sport. Fans on the rampage “muscle drain” through an exodus of sport migrants from the Third World or violations of the international labour standards in the sport article industry representing the flipside of the coin show that football cannot automatically turn the world into a fairer and more peaceful place.
How high is the social potential that football bears, and how can it be made use of in development co-operation?
A time to make friends
Photo: Bread for the World
The FIFA World Cup in Germany is just around the corner. Not a day goes by without the mention of football, and everyone longs feverishly for the big event. The hosts’ slogan passes the ball to development policy to draw attention to development issues within the framework of the World Cup as well. The World Cup Schools Project invites the world to be a guest at school. One South African and 204 German schools represent the FIFA countries. In accordance with the slogan “Fair Play for Fair Life”, they deal with the country they are representing and are organising a one day project on a development topic. Of course football is not neglected in this context. In four “Continental Championships”, the 32 best teams have qualified for the grand street football final in Potsdam in June 2006. The notion of “Fair Play - Fair Life” is also taken up by the campaign with the same name. There, everything focuses on the ball and Fair Trade. If the entire globe is united through Fair Play, then people should also be working and living in fair conditions worldwide!
Partnership between development and sport
Photo: Fairplay Fairlife
Sports are not only a medium and a mediator of development co-operation. The National Olympic Committee (NOC), the German Football Association (DFB) or the German Sports Youth (DSJ) are development co-operation participants themselves. Through sports, they support their own projects and programmes in developing countries. Sports clubs representing a wide range of leagues are active in this domain. For instance, the team members and fans of the “1. FC Köln” (first Cologne soccer club) are supporting a Misereor project in Wukro , Ethiopia , within the framework of the “Anstoß mit Herz” (kick-off with heart) campaign, and North Rhine-Westphalia’s Sports Youth are backing the SPACE (Sports against Crime) project in South Africa.
The “Sports Develop” symposium on May 4, 2006 brought together participants from the world of sports and from development co-operations, so that they can share their experiences and will be able to stay on the ball in future