sportanddev: A look at past achievements
The platform has come a long way since its inception following the 2003 Magglingen Conference. What began as an idea for an online meeting place to centralise our understanding of sport and development has seen an impressive evolution throughout the years.
History of milestones
In the past fifteen years, sportanddev has undergone several changes in its format. However, its core mission to share knowledge, build good practice, coordinate with others and create partnerships in sport and development, has remained the same.
Some of the biggest achievements have been the development of a French version of the platform, along with an updated website to improve user experience and better highlight community contributions. The platform has also expanded through social media. These channels allow us to broaden our reach in the international community, leading to our latest milestone of 15,000 Twitter followers.
Along with other actors, we have helped sport to gain wider recognition for its role as a tool in development. Our latest survey showed that the large majority (76%) of respondents agree that sportanddev has been important in helping sector grow. Though the global recognition of sport and development is difficult to measure, ‘sport and development’ as a term has increased significantly in the literature since 2003. This growth has helped lead to major policy developments such as sport being mentioned as “an enabler of development” in the sustainable development goals and the United Nations launching an International Day of Sport for Development and Peace.
Promoting sport for SDGs
sportanddev has also collected data on how the SDGs are being addressed by NGOs and sport organisations. In doing so, sportanddev contributes to the understanding of sport’s role in achieving these goals. This data is presented through case studies as well as a section devoted to the topic. We have also posed survey questions on sport and the SDGs to gain knowledge on how this role is perceived within the community.
Serving a community
One of the biggest achievements of sportandddev is its contribution to the understanding and dissemination of sport and development. sportanddev has facilitated this by publishing articles, research and updates, as well as hosting E-debates and covering major events. This year’s survey measured the value of our work to our community. We found that 75% of survey respondents had used information found on sportanddev in their own projects or programmes. 75% said they agreed that sportanddev was the leading source of information on sport and development (only 4% disagreed) while 20% had formed a partnership with an organisation they first read about on our website. This gives us confidence that, although there is room for improvement, the majority of users view our work positively and many are using information on our website in a practical way.
Activity