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DEVELOPMENT: From World Cup to World Assembly
By Sanjay Suri
GLASGOW, Scotland, Jun 22 (IPS) - The football World Cup in Germany and
the world assembly of civil society in Glasgow this week have the
Millennium Development Goals in common. True or false? True, if the
United Nations can have its way.
"Look at the connection between sport and health," says Djibril Diallo,
chairman of the United Nations Youth Leadership Summit series, and
director of the UN office in New York of sport for development and
peace. Promotion of health is one of the eight millennium development
goals (MDGs) agreed at a UN summit in 2000. The other principal goals are to
reduce poverty and to promote education and gender equality.
"Sport is essential to improving health and well-being," Diallo
says. "Sixty percent of adults do not get enough sports and physical
exercise. They lead mostly passive lifestyles, and this leads to
obesity."
And sport is also education, and can fight poverty, Diallo told IPS in a
telephone interview from Vienna. "Sport is school for life. It is
fundamental for holistic development. Look at the World Cup and
see what it teaches: cooperation, fair play, respect for rules. It
promotes tolerance. And over 90 minutes it is a lesson in resilience and
teamwork. These are very important skills and values."
It is also the best way of bridging the gender gap, Diallo said. "It
allows girls to participate, and increases their capacity for social
action beyond home. It is very important for the development of girls."
The football World Cup is a reminder also of what sport can do to bring
people together, he said. "Just see the power of the World Cup; it has
brought together people of all races, places and religions in a common
cause."
The MDGs are about most of these things. "So before the World Cup we
worked in the countries of origin of the 32 teams that qualified for the
World Cup by promoting a number of points of the MDGs. We have been
working with FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) to build strong relations with football associations
in each country."
The group has not been working only through football. It has organised
cricket matches between India and Pakistan, brought North and South
Korea together in the pan-Asian games, and brought Brazilian football
star Ronaldo to work with both Palestinian and Israeli children.
This week the UN group held a European Youth Leadership Summit in Vienna
where young leaders from across the European Union and the accession
countries Bulgaria and Romania focused on the convening power of sport
and culture to accelerate progress towards the MDGs.
Further to the millennium goal of 'developing a global partnership for
development', the 'Vienna declaration' underlines that youth represent
more than half of the world's population, and in order to achieve this
goal, youth should be actively involved in building a global partnership
for development by promoting sport as a vehicle for development.
Many of these issues arise this week also at the Civicus world assembly
in Glasgow. The central theme is 'acting together for a just world' That
includes specifically addressing the campaign to securing of the
millennium development goals.
Several of the themes that the Civicus assembly will take up include
issues covered by the MDGs, even if they are not stated as such. These
figure within the sub-themes of the Glasgow assembly: the attainment of
civic, economic, political and social justice.
While the MDGs as officially formulated are owned by governments and the
United Nations, civil society groups at the Glasgow assembly plan to
challenge the official moves to further these goals, while also itself
engaging in promotion of these goals.
One of the most critical areas where civil society has played a role in
advancing the MDGs is in finding innovative delivery solutions for aid
projects. Governments in many countries have begun increasingly to look
to civil society for both guiding and delivering aid.
The Civicus assembly plans to take experiences of delivering aid to
further the millennium goals into the realm of influencing political
policy. While that is not a game of football, the goal is not that
dissimilar. (END/2006)
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