sportanddev has positioned itself as a global knowledge leader for those actors using sport to achieve social, economic and environmental objectives. It is the foremost platform to share knowledge, build good practice, facilitate coordination and foster partnerships in sport and development.
The platform provides the latest news, commentary, articles, research, learning tools, networks and job opportunities in the sport and development field. Our work is not limited to our online platform – we also work offline, supporting and coordinating projects, events, advocacy and other initiatives.
More recently, sportanddev has built a free massive online open course (MOOC), in partnership with the Australian government and the Commonwealth, introducing sport for development and aiming to build capacity among individuals and organisations using sport for development in their policies and programmes. Till date, the course has seen over 5,000 learners join in, from over 180 countries across all six continents.
In partnership with the Japan Sport Council, sportanddev launched a freely available comprehensive global guidebook, which aims to bridge the divide between policy and practice, between theory and reality, by detailing the main factors to consider when designing, delivering and evaluating initiatives using sport for sustainable development.
sportanddev represents a diverse range of public and private stakeholders - in 2020, people from 229 countries and territories visited our site. The platform sees upwards of 500,000 unique visitors per year, with over 1,000 registered organisations and 10,000 registered users.
Users of the sportanddev platform have consistently reinforced the status of the platform as the leading information source, networking hub and advocacy space for sport and development, with 86%* of users strongly or mostly agreeing that they feel more informed about developments in the sector because of sportanddev, and over 76% of users strongly or mostly agreeing that sportanddev has helped them and/or their organisation in their own work.
Users also indicated that the platform plays a pivotal role in strengthening the overall field, with over 79% agreeing that sportanddev has helped the sector grow, and over 70% noting that sportanddev has brought voices from the field into higher level policy discussions. As a knowledge leader in the sector, over 80% of users have used information from the platform in their projects and programmes.
To increase sportanddev’s reach into the sport for development community, we aim to have the platform available in all official UN languages. With the English and French versions of the website already running, the Arabic platform will be launched in 2023.
*data based on a survey conducted with 100 people in 2021.
Photo by RUN 4 FFWPU
