Billions pledged to sport for development in Paris summit

On 25 July, on the eve of the Olympic Games, 500 participants gathered in Paris for the first Sport for Sustainable Development Summit. These included heads of state, international organisations, athletes, members of the Olympic movement and civil society organisations.  

Speakers included French President Emmanuel Macron, IOC President Thomas Bach and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. Leaders, including 60 heads of state, agreed on commitments to use sport for education, employment, health, nutrition, education, inclusion and sustainability. 

Specific commitments were made on five priority areas: 

• Education and employment, to make sport accessible to all school-age children in the world for at least 30 minutes a day, and to promote employability and the acquisition of skills through sport 

• Health and nutrition, to reduce the prevalence of physical inactivity by 15% by 2030 and improve the health, nutrition and well-being of individuals 

• Equality and inclusion, to make physical activity and sport accessible to all, given that one in three women are insufficiently physically active and that 15% of the world's population has a disability, with a particular focus on refugees 

• Financing and impact measurement, to unlock the full potential of sport through the mobilisation of investments and impact measurement 

• Sustainability and legacy, to organise more sustainable and responsible sporting events, aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement 

A number of organisations also announced financial commitments: 

• The International Olympic Committee announced a 10% increase in its budget for its Olympic Solidarity programme, which will now have a budget of USD 650 million for 2025-28 

• The 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games will commit USD 160 million to subsidise and expand youth sport in the city’s parks in the next four years 

• FIFA will expand its Football for Schools programme and build 1,000 sustainable football pitches in schools to make football more accessible to boys and girls, and to strengthen the life skills of young people through football 

• The National Basketball Association (NBA) will work with the French Development Agency (AFD) and other partners to build 1,000 basketball courts in Africa over the next decade 

• The Sustainable Development through Sport coalition, a group of public development banks and other institutions committed to investing USD 10 billion in community-based, inclusive and sustainable sports infrastructure by 2030 

• AFD will invest EUR 500 million in sport for sustainable development by 2030 

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President Macron said: “The Games are a way to cast a light on what we are doing and launch new initiatives and thanks to all the donations that have been mobilised for the African, Latin American and Pacific continents and I thank you for the everyday engagement towards this direction.” 

sportanddev welcomes these substantial commitments as many actors using sport for development face funding and resource limitations, especially in the Global South. The commitments are global in nature and need to ensure they address inequities in sport and sport for development – and will need to be equitable and inclusive to be effective.  

With Senegal to host the 2026 Youth Olympics, the country’s president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, said, “The international system is being challenged and there is an urgent need to reform it to make it more inclusive, fairer and more transparent.” We agree with him wholeheartedly. 

Organisers hope that the Sport for Sustainable Development Summit will become a recurring event at major sporting events.