Sustainable development: A change of goals or a (needed) change of approach for sport?
01 Sep 2015
https://www.sportanddev.org/latest/news/sustainable-development-change-goals-or-needed-change-approach-sport
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Iain Lindsey, lecturer in sports policy and development at the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University, asks some important questions about sport, development programmes and sustainability.
The prominence of the 2015 sustainable development agenda may present new possibilities and challenges for sport but perhaps in ways other than commonly expected.
[This article has been edited by the Operating Team]
New opportunities post-2015?
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) themselves may offer continuity rather than change with sport best placed to address those associated with health and wellbeing, education, gender equity and economic growth that were also prioritised in the preceding Millennium Development Goals. As their title suggests, where the SDGs differ more significantly is in the addition of a number of primarily environmental objectives that are not as well aligned with existing practice or evidence in the sport and development sector.
Nevertheless, the terminology of the new goals itself presents a significant question: what does it mean for development through sport to be ‘sustainable’? This question has been the focus of an ongoing research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust and undertaken by an international network of SDP researchers across Ghana, Tanzania, the United Kingdom and Australia.
In search of sustainability
Findings from the research indicate that the priority for many SDP organisations is sustaining existing activities that they deliver or fund. With financial and human resources required for such ongoing provision, seeking to garner further funding and provide training for local stakeholders are common approaches to sustainability in SDP. However, such approaches encounter significant barriers, including the limited availability of in-country funding and the dissipation of trained coaches over time. This approach can also be criticised for avoiding alternative possibilities of what needs to be sustained and, instead, assuming that current activities are the best means to achieve ongoing development.
An alternative, but perhaps more sensible, answer to the original question would be to seek to sustain developmental outcomes. And yet, achieving such ends may require different means and a rethinking and reorientation of current approaches. For example, as well as focusing on developing the skills of young people involved in sport projects, efforts must be made to ensure that there are opportunities for young people to utilise these skills as they grow older, move away from particular projects and, potentially, sport itself.
An alternative approach focusing on systematic change
Through the research, identified examples of alternative approaches to sustainable development through sport also indicate the importance of recognising the complexities of change in localised contexts and the need to value and nurture unintended outcomes. More substantially, as has been insightfully recognised elsewhere, achieving sustainable development in these terms requires a greater focus on systematic change across communities and institutions and a move beyond sport and development projects that are narrowly focused in terms of aims, target groups and curricula.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) themselves may offer continuity rather than change with sport best placed to address those associated with health and wellbeing, education, gender equity and economic growth that were also prioritised in the preceding Millennium Development Goals. As their title suggests, where the SDGs differ more significantly is in the addition of a number of primarily environmental objectives that are not as well aligned with existing practice or evidence in the sport and development sector.
Nevertheless, the terminology of the new goals itself presents a significant question: what does it mean for development through sport to be ‘sustainable’? This question has been the focus of an ongoing research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust and undertaken by an international network of SDP researchers across Ghana, Tanzania, the United Kingdom and Australia.
In search of sustainability
Findings from the research indicate that the priority for many SDP organisations is sustaining existing activities that they deliver or fund. With financial and human resources required for such ongoing provision, seeking to garner further funding and provide training for local stakeholders are common approaches to sustainability in SDP. However, such approaches encounter significant barriers, including the limited availability of in-country funding and the dissipation of trained coaches over time. This approach can also be criticised for avoiding alternative possibilities of what needs to be sustained and, instead, assuming that current activities are the best means to achieve ongoing development.
An alternative, but perhaps more sensible, answer to the original question would be to seek to sustain developmental outcomes. And yet, achieving such ends may require different means and a rethinking and reorientation of current approaches. For example, as well as focusing on developing the skills of young people involved in sport projects, efforts must be made to ensure that there are opportunities for young people to utilise these skills as they grow older, move away from particular projects and, potentially, sport itself.
An alternative approach focusing on systematic change
Through the research, identified examples of alternative approaches to sustainable development through sport also indicate the importance of recognising the complexities of change in localised contexts and the need to value and nurture unintended outcomes. More substantially, as has been insightfully recognised elsewhere, achieving sustainable development in these terms requires a greater focus on systematic change across communities and institutions and a move beyond sport and development projects that are narrowly focused in terms of aims, target groups and curricula.
[This article has been edited by the Operating Team]
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