By Mohamed Berray
United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/67/296 established April 6 as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP). The day commemorates the positive role that sport and physical activity play in communities and in people’s lives across the globe. It’s also symbolic of the United Nations’ recognition of the influences of sport in the advancement of peace and development.
In July 2022, on the first day of the European Football Associations (UEFA) Women’s EURO 2022 tournament, the United Nations launched the Football for the Goals initiative, inspiring action to demonstrate sustainable practices through sport. UEFA, which launched a sustainability strategy “Strength through Unity” in December 2021, joined the initiative as inaugural member, focusing on the role of sports in human rights and the environment. Other international organizations and football associations launched similar projects demonstrating how national teams, and grassroots football and leagues can work together to support United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Barça Foundation, the philanthropy arm of Barcelona Football Club, partnered with the United Nations Children’s Fund to create a Sport for Development (S4D) initiative that uses sport to achieve sustainable growth and development outcomes for children and youth. In the words of the Deputy Secretary–General of the United Nations, Amina J. Mohammed, “all you need is a ball for people to come together”.
Sports unite people, irrespective of ethnic, religious, or socioeconomic backgrounds. As fans and nations, we put aside differences for the collective good of our teams. This common interest in victory engenders unique attributes to unite and provide a source of hope and inspiration. It enhances cooperation among people and reinforces state functionalism. Sport historian, Mark Dyreson, once said: “more than any other modern institution with the exception of war, sport provides the necessary conditions for the patriotic bonds that bind citizen to citizen.” In his 2000 speech at the inaugural Laureus World Sports Awards, former South African President Nelson Mandela said “sport has the power to change the world … It has the power to unite people in a way that little else can”. Sport, he said, “can awaken hope where there was previously only despair”. This transcendence of race, religion, politics, ethnic and cultural differences in favor of national unity, are also values embodied in the International Olympics Charter for tolerance, justice and equality for all. Sports, the International Olympic Committee says, can cultivate peaceful attributes by carving out space and time for putting conflicts aside to treat people as equals under the rules of the game in ways that teaches everyone to tolerate and celebrate differences.
In sub-Saharan Africa, participation in sport has empowered communities to break stereotypes, and has unified differentiated groups to engage in advocacy for reforms that engender democratic development processes and increase positive interactions between groups that would otherwise remain divided. From the onset of independence, African teams, federations, and individual athletes have used sports as a tool to fight for social justice on the continent. Extensive research about nationalistic fervor around high-stakes football games in sub-Saharan Africa have found that collective experiences during international football tournaments can be effective at priming sentiments of national unity and at attenuating even deeply rooted ethnic mistrust (Depetris-Chauvin et. al., 2020; Cornelissen, 2011; Sikes, 2019). National support at international tournaments improves attitudes and affects the propensity to trust others of different ethnicities.
On Oct 8, 2005, Ivory Coast beat Sudan 3-1 to qualify for the 2006 World Cup and made history by securing the country’s first ever appearance at the global tournament. At the time of the match, Ivory Coast was embroiled in a civil war that killed an estimated 4,000 people and displaced over 1 million (CNN). Didier Drogba, star striker and national icon, capitalized on the football wave sweeping the country. Shoulder to shoulder with his teammates, they knelt in a dressing room full of journalists after the victory against Sudan and pleaded: “men and women of the Ivory Coast. From the north, south, center and west. We proved today that all Ivorians can coexist and play together with a shared objective to qualify for the World Cup … Today, we beg you, please – on our knees – forgive … Please, lay down all weapons”. This was followed by cheerful team chanting “we want to have fun, so stop firing your guns”. Didier Drogba became a symbol of hope for mobilizing popular support to resolve the armed conflict among warring factions in his native Ivory Coast. His efforts contributed to national peace.
In 2001, Liberia’s minister of youth and sports, Francois Massaquoi, said in an interview with Sports Illustrated that “George Weah and football are the only things we have to hold on to”. Football, he said, “is the glue that holds this country together.” George Weah, three times African Footballer of the Year, and the 1995 winner of the Ballon d'Or, and FIFA World Player of the Year, retired from football in 2002 and used his wealth and popularity to contest for power. He was elected president of Liberia in 2017.
This cohesion through sport as a platform upon which cooperation for democratic and development processes are initiated, provides opportunities for at-risk societies to create a national goodwill of unity that preaches the values and attributes necessary for peaceful coexistence and for individual and societal development. For this reason, South Africa explicitly linked sport to development and reconciliation in the country’s 1994 Reconstruction and Development Program (Höglund, K & Sundberg, R, 2008). There have also been many similar initiatives by local and international organizations to build capacity at the community level in Africa. In many post-conflict societies across the continent, sports have been used as a veritable tool by donor countries for peace-building efforts. In Nigeria, the United Nations Development Program, in partnership with the International Organization for Migration, and the United Nations Children’s Fund, implemented the European Union Support for Reconciliation and Reintegration (S2R) of former armed non-state combatants and Boko Haram associates. This community-led peace through sports initiative strengthened social cohesion, rebuilt intercommunal trust, and served as the foundation for community healing and peaceful co-existence through alternatives to violence. Throughout Africa, these efforts have proven useful in enhancing conflict resolution, and society’s overall capacity to demobilize, reintegrate, and rehabilitate child soldiers and displaced people in refugee camps. In support for refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2020 partnered with the Olympic Refugee Foundation to assess Sport for Protection projects that meaningfully engage young people in forced displacement settings to build their skills and bring about a positive change through fun, safe and structured sport activities that contribute to their development and learning.
Sports consolidate citizenship. It creates an environment that integrates different ethnicities to celebrate national pride under a single banner. As individuals, we are each different in our own ways, but as citizens, we advance claims in the public domain and assess claims made by others. But sporting events and their accompanying victories are by nature momentary and may not last long. The symbolism that accompanies participation in international events is likely to evaporate and cannot withstand as a tool for continuous nation building without efforts at transformation. It is true that sports provide windows of opportunities for political dialogue, cohesion, and reforms capable of producing long-lasting solutions, but governments need to be able to harness national symbolism through sports and inter-communal sport initiatives to develop policies that create fairness, individual development, and break down stereotypes and negative attitudes. Well-designed culturally sensitive sport programs when locally grounded and professionally managed, can promote conflict resolution and peaceful coexistence.
The theme for this year’s commemoration of the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace 2023 is “Scoring for People and the Planet”. Davos-style conversations on the themes of sustainability and climate action, gender equality, and fight against racism and hate speech were held at the UN Headquarters in New York, highlighting the power of sports in advancing peace, human rights, and Sustainable Development Goals. From empowering women, the youth, persons with disabilities, and other marginalized groups, the universality of sport has been harnessed to promote peace, unite communities, advance human rights, and show children a way out of misery and violence and redirect youthful energies to gainful experiences.
Mohamed Berray is faculty at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. He holds the United States Soccer Federation National D Soccer Coaching License. Mohamed coaches Division 1 boys at the Associated Soccer Group academy in Tallahassee.
Copyright © 2023 Politico (17/04/23)
