Pledging to use sport to better the lives of refugees in our “fragile” world

Ali is a little boy from Syria. A refugee, he is now in Greece.

There is policy and there is how it can, and should, play out in real life – making kids who have little, happy. This is that story.

The 2023 Global Refugee Forum (GRF) took place in December 2023 in Geneva. The GRF takes place every four years. It brings together states, advocates and an array of other stakeholders.

As 2023 got underway, as the delegates heard, some 110 million people on our planet were forcibly displaced because of persecution, conflict, violence and human rights violations.

To be clear, sport cannot fix the structural drivers of any or many conflicts. But it can offer a path to inclusion, protection and better mental health.

This is the essence of the Olympic Games. And why of course the IOC established the Olympic Refuge Foundation in 2017, in the wake of the participation at Rio 2016 of the first Refugee Olympic Team. Paris 2024 will see a third Summer Games edition of the Refugee Team.

Too, it was the message of the IOC, through Olympic Solidarity, at the Forum: for displaced persons, sport ought not to be just a “nice to have”. It can and should be viewed for what it is: important.

As IOC President Thomas Bach says frequently, our world is “fragile and broken”. At the 2023 Forum, more than 135 entities committed, through what is called the “Multistakeholder Sport Pledge,” worth more than USD 50 million, to use sport to aim to better the lives of refugees. Organisers estimate funds will go toward some 825,000 displaced people and host community members.

The Pledge includes over 40 NOCs and IFs, along with governments, refugee-led organisations, UN agencies, private sector groups and more.

A wide array of NOCs – from around the world, some with more resources, others perhaps with less but no less committed – signed up. The list includes the NOCs of, among others, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Kenya, Moldova, Norway, Qatar, Rwanda and Slovakia.

Katrin Grafarend, Head of International Relations at the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), told the forum that NOCs play a key role as “important connectors” in implementing the Pledge, especially in “allocating resources” and “fostering partnerships”.

“The GRF is a key moment for us to advocate for sport to be better leveraged by non-sport actors to meet objectives of supporting young people living in displacement contexts. It will help more practitioners and policy makers adopt sport into their work supporting refugees and displaced people.”

As part of the Pledge, she told the delegates that the DOSB would be partnering with the Greek Olympic Committee to implement a EUR 2 million (roughly USD 2.1 million) project called “Together in Sport”.

The goal: to reach 10,000 young refugees in Greece, including unaccompanied minors and young people with a disability, with activities running through to 2026.

This is how Ali went to the basketball game that day, said Gabriel Mujollari, the Hellenic Olympic Committee’s Project Officer. Along with another little boy, Jatin from India, added his DOSB counterpart, Tobias Antoni.

Players from both teams, you should know, took pictures with the kids and high-fived them. Also true: Jatin said afterward he was never, ever going to wash his hand!

The Pledge:

“Together, we pledge to mobilise resources, expertise and networks to promote access to and opportunities through sport for, and with, displaced people and host communities, contributing to more inclusive, tolerant and cohesive societies.”