Olympism 365: from strategy to implementation

The goal of Olympism 365 is to strengthen the role of sport as an important enabler of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), and the strategy is the engine behind Recommendation 10 of Olympic Agenda 2020+5, the IOC’s strategic roadmap.

Underpinned by innovative partnerships between the IOC and a range of stakeholders – including from the Olympic Movement, the IOC’s commercial partners, NGOs, government departments, development banks, UN and development agencies, and programme delivery organisations – Olympism 365 is a catalyst to help bring together projects and programmes that use sport and to impact people’s lives in key areas of society, such as education, health and inclusion.

Olympism 365 highlights

In the months since Olympism 365 was endorsed by the IOC Executive Board in October 2021, the impact of the IOC’s contribution to creating new ways to access and benefit from sport has been accelerated. Some of the highlights so far in 2022 include the following:

• 35 Olympafrica Centres will benefit from the Olympafrica Foundation’s new O!YES programme, supported by the IOC, which will be launched in 2022 and which is aimed at youth empowerment, development of social and physical skills, inclusion and gender equality through sport and education in the Olympic values.
• 120 new projects have been initiated by National Olympic Committees (NOCs) in 2022, focused on promoting community cohesion, health and well-being, sustainability, and the Olympic values. All have been supported and facilitated by Olympic Solidarity.
• 166 future Olympic Values Education Programme implementers have been trained by the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage to deliver educational programmes around the Olympic values.
• 3,973 trainers, teachers and community leaders and 168 community organisations and education institutions across Brazil and Argentina have been reached since 2018. That year marked the start of the IOC’s collaboration with UN Women, Women Win and Empodera on the One Win Leads to Another initiative to support the provision of safe spaces to engage adolescent girls and women through sport and build their capacity to influence decisions that impact their lives.
• 24 per cent increase in the number of young people reporting more effective organisational and planning skills after taking part in the Sportic programme, an initiative by the IOC, the Inter-American Development Bank and Fundación SES that uses sport and technology-based programming to help improve the education and social-emotional development of young people across Argentina, Colombia and Ecuador.

Youth at the heart of community projects

Young people play a key role in leveraging the power of sport and Olympism to make a positive difference in their communities, as demonstrated in the examples below:

• 12 IOC Young Leaders joined Team USA Paralympic medallist Amy Purdy in March and April to share their insights on how they are using sport to help promote sustainable development as part of the “We Have a Goal” podcast series, developed in partnership with Panasonic. “Sport is so important,” says Purdy. “We talk about it a lot for physical health and well-being, but I don’t think we talk about it enough as far as bringing communities together is concerned.”
• 17-year-old Natsiraishe Maritsa of Zimbabwe, who uses the taekwondo club she runs as a platform to combat gender-based violence and child marriage, was announced as one of five continental winners of the IOC Women and Sport Awards. “Taekwondo helps to empower women and girls in my community by instilling self-belief and the ability to set goals,” she explained to World Taekwondo.

Collective action central to Olympism 365

The next step in delivering the strategy will be the establishment of coalitions and networks of aligned sport-based projects, programmes and initiatives focused on contributing to clusters of Sustainable Development Goals, for example education and livelihoods, healthy and active communities, and equitable and inclusive societies.

Organisations and partners involved in these networks will have opportunities to share insight, learnings and best practices with each other and Olympic Movement stakeholders such as International Federations, NOCs, the IOC’s Worldwide Olympic Partners, athletes and IOC Young Leaders, as well as a range of stakeholders from outside the Olympic Movement.

The facts and figures recorded this year are just a snapshot of the lives and communities that the IOC and Olympism impact through sport. The coordinated, partnership-based approach of Olympism 365 promises to provide a huge boost to these and other initiatives all over the world in the years to come.