sportanddev launches new partnership with Qatar Fund for Development

Under the umbrella of the joint initiative “Sport for Development and Peace” by Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) and Qatar Charity (QC), QFFD and the International Platform on Sport and Development (sportanddev.org) have launched a partnership to support the platform’s outreach in the Arabic-speaking world. This will include publishing an Arabic-language version of sportanddev.org and offering online trainings for sport for development and peace actors in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The sportanddev.org website is a leading hub for the global sport and development community to share knowledge, build good practice, communicate with others, and create partnerships. It is an online resource and networking tool that offers online courses designed to share and advance knowledge on how to be best use sports as a tool for peace and development.

A growing number of organizations in the MENA region are using sport for social, economic and environmental development. Sport is being used to address a wide range of issues, from education in Morocco and life skills in Lebanon to peacebuilding in Iraq and youth empowerment in Qatar. However, few sport and development resources exist in the Arabic language and there remain capacity gaps.

The partnership will close this gap, providing tools to support actors in the region to increase the positive impact of their work. Content will also be translated from Arabic to English and other languages, providing Arabic-speaking organizations with more influence and visibility internationally.

The partnership between QFFD and sportanddev.org will include a massive open online course (MOOC) delivered in Arabic with a focus on the MENA region’s context and challenges. The current English course has been a great success and has attracted over 5,800 learners from 185 countries and counting. The course will be translated and customized for an Arabic-speaking audience, and will include examples and case studies from the region. The course aims to strengthen the credibility of sport as a tool for development and peace and encourage more organizations to use sports effectively in achieving development, humanitarian, and peace-building outcomes.  

This collaboration will also support the organization of a high-level sport for development and peace event in and related to the Middle East and North Africa regions.  Overall, the partnership seeks to improve equity, access and inclusion by ensuring that Arabic-speaking stakeholders and voices are given greater visibility and can input more significantly into a reshaped sport and development sector.