In an exclusive interview with Sheana Laughlin of MediaGlobal, the Director of the United Nations New York Office of Sport for Development and Peace, Dr. Djibril Diallo discusses how sports could help alleviate poverty and aid in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
Currently, Dr. Diallo is implementing a three-year Action Plan on Sport for Development and Peace, which was adopted by the General Assembly last November. He is also working with the United Nations economic commissions and regional associations of Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean to raise global awareness and program implementation of Sport for Development and Peace.
MediaGlobal: Your program focuses on sport as a way to unite communities, both large and small, in friendly and respectful play. This can help foster peace and understanding, but how can Sport improve economic and social development?
Dr. Diallo: Sport is very important because it is a driving force in creating positive change, not only in the area of development but also in the area of peace. How can it do that? Well first of all, it brings all answers together around one goal, which is the sport that is being played. If partnerships are strategically sport-based those partnerships can go a long way to bring about peace and bring about development. Sport is a very cost effective means of achieving those two goals.
Another point I would like to emphasize is for today’s youth, employment is the single most important requirement. Local sport programs can offer employment, and can also reduce social exclusion among the youth.
Q: Training youth is an important factor?
A: Yes, when you talk about employment, training is very important. And when you talk about training, skills are very important, and sport is one of the single most important contributors to building leadership skills among the youth. It empowers the youth. It gives them a healthy alternative to potentially dangerous, harmful ways of life.
Q: What steps have you taken in using sport as a way to advance developing communities?
A: The concrete steps are two-fold. One: wherever there are potential areas of conflict sport has been used as a way to either take the sting out of that conflict or lessen the impact of such conflict. And we have a lot of examples; one is in the Middle East — sports clinic between Palestinians and Israeli children in soccer.
Also, at the height of tensions between India and Pakistan we brought the cricket teams of the two countries together, and when they got together that facilitated movement between the two countries. At less media-visible levels, traditional sport has been used at the border between Uganda and Sudan to help integrate communities by communicating a message of peace. Right now we have three countries that we are looking at for serving as pilot countries for Sport for Peace. One is the Democratic Republic of Congo, the second one is Liberia and the third one is Côte d’Ivoire.
Q: . . . and in the areas of developing communities . . .
A: As for sport for development, we are trying to use sport in order to help the United Nations reach internationally agreed development goals, essentially the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. If you take goal one, which is the fight against poverty, we have sport and economic development, as I mentioned earlier. Though, the best way to fight poverty is not only to provide food, shelter and clothing to the beneficiaries but to make sure they have healthy lifestyles. For diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDs we have advocacy tools, like having sport stars associate their names in public service announcements with activities that could help lessen the impact of such diseases.
Q: Have you ever found that due to the competitive nature of bringing two tense communities together in sport, tension can escalate?
A: Sport is not the only contributor towards lessening tensions among communities, it is one of the most important ones. So, when there is tension between communities, experience has shown that when those communities agree to play organized sports, it bonds the communities together and helps them forget a little bit of their differences. So, yes, tensions are there, but sport is an important tool to lessen tensions.
Q: The International Year of Sport and Physical Education 2005 was successful in initiating Sport Policy in several Commonwealth countries in Africa. In what ways have some of these countries expanded their development framework to include sport in their poverty reduction strategies?
*A: *If I take Africa as an example, the African countries went from the global commemoration of sport to declare this year, 2007, as the International Year of football. And by so doing, they decided to use sport to eradicate poverty, to use sport for peace. I can give you an example from a number of countries, but will focus on Ghana.
Ghana is one of the first countries that have integrated the concept of sport for development and sport for peace into national policies. By so doing, it has used sport as a tool for assisting the country to achieve its development objectives in its Poverty Developments Strategy Paper, which is commonly known as the PRSP.
The ministries of education, science and sport, in Ghana, are very active participants in anything to do with sport for development and peace around the world. I mentioned earlier, the need to promote training and jobs, Ghana has used sport as a tool to create jobs, to increase the economic development of the country and step up industrialization.
Q: Do you channel the power of the media to bring about change in the attitude of peoples and governments towards developing countries in Africa?
A: The media is a very strong channel to promote the daily activities and initiatives of Sport for Development and Peace. We as an office work very closely with the media. The media is what we call the third channel of communication. The first channel of education is ones’ own parents. The second channel of education is what one learns from formal education, school and so on. And the third channel of education is what you learn from the media. From radio, from television, from newspapers, so you get a lot of facts from life that you did not learn from your parents or from school, but from the media. That is the third channel of education, and one that we use very effectively by bringing sports stars to be spokespersons for the issues that we are concerned about.
If you are interested in tennis, we have Serena Williams who has been putting in time and energy towards sport for education. She has a lot of fans, so when she says something her fans listen to her. Last November we sent her on a trip to Africa, to Ghana and Senegal. She participated in the first ever United Nations Global Youth Leadership Summit and she really connected to the communities and the youth throughout Africa. When she came back to the United States she spoke a lot about the need to support the African youth. It was a very, very effective visit.
Q: Do you have plans for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa?
A: Yes, the organizing committee of the 2010 World Cup has invited us as advisors on how Africa as a continent can benefit from the fact that Africans are organizing for the first time in its history, the World Cup. This means that between now and 2010, each and every country can see how it can use sport in order to accelerate its own sustainable development. And if a country from Africa is in the throes of conflict, either inside its own borders or a conflict between two countries, then how sport can be used within this framework. We helped to organize a workshop in South Africa that has led to 15 points on how to achieve these goals, and we are working with the United Nations system as a whole.
Q: What is your ultimate goal for the Sport for Peace and Development Programme?
A: The new Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, has emphatically stated that the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals is a major priority for the United Nations, and this office is bringing the convening power of sport combined with the creativity and enthusiasm of young people, to help achieve those Millennium Development Goals. Our hope is through sport we can help as many countries as possible go beyond the finish line of 2015. That is why the Secretary-General of the United Nations has said that the work of sport is very important and that he is supporting it all the way.