Our approach
The United Nations recognises sport internationally ‘as a means to promote education, health, development and peace’. German development cooperation also uses the opportunities offered by ‘Sport for Development’. Sport allows children and young people to lead healthy lives, and it teaches them to take on responsibility, behave fairly and resolve conflict peacefully. These are key skills that will later help them gain a foothold in the working world. German development cooperation trains coaches for this purpose. They are role models and figures the young people can trust. The coaches give the children and young people a stronger sense of self-esteem and help them develop prospects for the future. During training, they address health-related topics such as HIV prevention and alcohol abuse. Sport is not just physical exercise, it is part of their education.
Together with local and international partners from the fields of policy-making, civil society, business and academia, German development cooperation has built up a sustainable sport portfolio that also helps strengthen civil society and promote democracy. In this way, sport serves as an innovative instrument that drives change and sustainable development – for each individual child and for society as a whole.
The project
The ‘Sport for Development in Africa’ (S4DA) project began establishing sport as a tool for achieving development goals in selected African countries in 2014, when the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH was commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). S4DA makes an important contribution to implementing ‘More Space for Sport – 1,000 Chances for Africa’, the initiative launched by Federal Minister Dr. Gerd Müller.
Key measures
In conjunction with several partners, the following measures are implemented to achieve development objectives through sport:
*In selected locations such as municipal establishments, youth centres, vocational schools and educational institutions, in refugee camps and host communities and in rural regions, grassroots sports grounds are being rehabilitated and new ones constructed. This provides safe places to meet and spaces where coaches can offer sporting activities in line with the ‘Sport for Development’ (S4D)-approach.
*S4DA strengthens the capacities of local partners to enable them to operate and use the sports grounds sustainably – in terms of both technical maintenance and the activities offered. After all, the rule of thumb is: ‘Sports grounds with concepts!’.
*Through corresponding training measures, the required management capacities of those responsible on the ground are strengthened. Coaches trained by S4DA and by the partners offer sporting activities that aim to promote social competences. Therefore, children and youth gain key competences that prepare participants for the labour market, contribute to peaceful conflict resolution and support positive personal development. The sporting activities and training measures for coaches are based on methods developed in conjunction with local partners. The young adults who train to become coaches serve as role models for children and teenagers and also in the communities. They pass on their knowledge and act as multipliers.
Sustainable embedding of the ‘Sport for Development’-approach
To sustainably anchor the S4D-approach in the African countries, S4DA fosters the broad-based participation of key stakeholders. These include relevant lead executing agencies (such as Ministries of Education and Sport) and local expert groups. The targeted inclusion and integration of the S4DA approach into the relevant sectors in the partner countries – such as (vocational) education, good governance and displacement/migration – strengthens these sectors and promotes long-term ownership of S4DA. This lays the foundations for the mainstreaming and upscaling of measures implemented by S4DA.