Sport policy boosts countries’ fitness in more ways than one
Well-designed sport and physical activity strategies can make valuable contributions to national development and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
That was the message from experts and policy makers who gathered for the three-day annual meeting of the Commonwealth Advisory Body on Sport (CABOS).
Members emphasised that sport can be an “enabler of sustainable development” but also that the social and economic impact of investment in sport needs to be systematically measured in order to advance the field.
The focus at the meeting, and now going forward through various actions, is on quantifying the contribution of sport to the SDGs around health, education, gender and broader equality, building collective capacity to protect the integrity of sport against issues such as corruption and doping, and advancing consensus on promoting human rights in and through sport.
There has already been some success, with CABOS appraisal of results in Jamaica, where 50 per cent of participants in a series of sport-based programmes have reported they are less likely to join a gang and more than 70 per cent have reported they are less likely to commit a crime.
Activity