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World Refugee Day 2025: How sport can foster inclusion of displaced people in cities and combat hate speech
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Insights from the Week of Action 2025

“Sporting activities have emerged as alternative approaches to integration, countering securitization and criminalization among other dominant narratives against urban refugees. Moreover, sport has helped restore the dignity and humanize the urban refugee not as a threat but rather as a player, coach, and a teammate.” 
- Mercy Chepkirui

On World Refugee Day 2025 and every day, we stand in solidarity 

World Refugee Day 2025 comes at a time of record displacement. According to UNHCR, more than 123 million people were forcibly displaced by the end of 2024. As conflicts, climate shocks, and persecution continue to force people to flee their homes, it’s not just numbers that are rising—so are the risks of discrimination, marginalization, and hate.  

World Refugee Day 2025 calls on us to act in solidarity, not only in words but through concrete action. 

What role can sport play in this effort? 

Every year, the Sport for Refugees Coalition (SfRC) and International Platform on Sport and Development (sportanddev) run a week of activities dedicated to the intersection of sport and refugees. It provides opportunities for learning, exchange and advocacy on the role of sport in addressing forced displacement, enabling greater coordination and impact. 

The Week of Action 2025 focused on two key dimensions of inclusion, highlighting the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of sport and forced displacement: 

  • Inclusion of displaced people in cities through sport  
  • Combating hate speech and discrimination in sport 

Through a Call for Articles on these themes, the SfRC co-convenors (UNHCR, the Olympic Refuge Foundation, and the Scort Foundation) together with sportanddev gathered valuable insights from practitioners and sport actors both within and beyond the Sport for Refugees Coalition. The recommendations are intended for policymakers, local authorities, sport organisations, and all stakeholders committed to fostering more inclusive environments for displaced populations in, and through sport. 

1. Recommendations for the inclusion of displaced people in cities and urban settings 

2. Recommendations to address hate speech and discrimination in and through sport 

Sport holds unique potential to connect, empower, and transform. It can strengthen social bonds, combat harmful narratives, and offer young refugees a sense of belonging. But to realise this potential, all actors— local and national governments, NGOs, sport bodies, and communities—must work together, embedding sport into broader strategies for inclusion. Central to these efforts must be the meaningful participation and leadership of people with lived experience of displacement, whose insights are essential to shaping relevant, sustainable, and impactful initiatives. 

These recommendations mark the start of coordinated action and collective impact. The Sport for Refugees Coalition remains deeply committed to driving meaningful change, working towards UNHCR’s High-Level Officials Meeting in December 2025, a midpoint interministerial conference that will include a stocktaking on pledges made at the Global Refugee Forum in 2023. The meeting will help define the way forward for the next Global Refugee Forum in 2027. 

We are grateful to all the individuals and organizations who contributed their insights through the articles.  

View all Week of Action 2025 article submissions

For more information, or to connect with the Sport for Refugees Coalition, please contact us at [email protected]

Photo Credit: IOC/Greg Martin 

“On the field, the divisions we take for granted—race, religion, caste, tribe, background, abilities, region, country—begin to feel arbitrary, even foolish. This is not idealism; rather, it is the observable, repeatable alchemy of sports. And in a world where hate speech spreads like wildfire, we have overlooked one of the most effective firebreaks, which I call the simple act of play.”  
- Thotchanso Zingyo

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