Generating evidence and building capacity on sport for sustainable development

As part of its commitment to ensuring more young people benefit from sports participation and Olympism, the IOC and Worldwide Olympic Partner Allianz commissioned strategic research on youth engagement in sport and physical activity.

The first stage of the research resulted in the publication of “Move Now.Move365: Understanding trends in youth participation in sport”. This report, based on survey data from 5,000 young people and 2,000 parents across 10 countries, explored the current levels of youth engagement in sport and the factors that influence it.

A series of expert workshops attended by 32 practitioners from 21 countries, were organised to further analyse the report insights and identify examples of good practices to address barriers to youth sport participation.

These findings will further inform the IOC’s Olympism365 strategy and Allianz’s MoveNow programme, as well as future policy, strategy and programme development.

The IOC and the Association For International Sport for All (TAFISA) have initiated SUCCEED, a global capacity building framework for Sport for All practitioners and organisations, dedicated to fostering community empowerment and development.

Through strategic collaboration with diverse sport and non-profit organisations, SUCCEED integrates a range of capacity-building initiatives, experts and mentors under a unified framework. It promotes innovative teaching methods and approaches, and the use of shared insights and learning to improve capacity building efforts.

SUCCEED supports capacity building approaches that:

• promote solidarity, safeguarding, equality, inclusion, human rights and sustainable progress in and through sport
• focus on achieving measurable positive social outcomes and impact
• build competencies to drive policy and practice change, secure increased funding and effective regulatory frameworks that support Sport for All growth.

Developed in collaboration with Athlete365, the Athletes Giving Back Course, available on the Athlete365 Learning platform, is designed for athletes who want to leverage their platform in sport for positive social change.

With over 400 enrolments and 70 completions to date, the interactive course provides a step-by-step guide to supporting and developing safe, inclusive and sustainable sports-based projects that promote education and livelihoods, equality and inclusion, health, peace and safe communities, and environmental sustainability.

Athletes learn how best to use their voice to advocate for key issues, engage with their network, support existing social change initiatives, and explore new career and social business opportunities.

Through a three-year Sport Policy and SDP Mapping Reasearch Programme, the IOC is collaborating with the University of Western Cape and other key regional stakeholders including the African Union Sports Council and the UNESCO Chair for Sport for development and Peace and Olympic Education to:

• Build the capacity of 2,000 local stakeholders on sport for development research in 22 countries across Africa
• Develop 22 country profiles on the status and progress of relevant policies, resources and networks, as well as identifying the gaps in sport for development policy and practice.

Covering a range of thematic areas including sport governance and demography, sport and social development, financing, training and education, the country profiles are designed to inform decision-making, resource allocation and programme development.