Call for more Monitoring and Evaluation

The 7th Peace and Sport International Forum took place in Monaco from 6 until 8 November.

Invited to participate in the Forum, ICSSPE President Margaret Talbot took the stage during the last session entitled “Recommendations”. After stating ICSSPE’s mission, at the crossroads between science, policy and practice, and outlining some of the work currently undertaken (Communities & Crisis seminar; handbook on using sport for post-disaster psycho-social recovery), she stressed the importance of collaborating and finding a common ground between the different actors. She emphasised that “practice, policy and science ought to be complementary worlds. Practitioners shouldn’t turn off when researchers speak. Researchers need to translate what they say into understandable language. And policy-makers need to listen. We’ve heard a lot about the non-listening stance of many policy-makers, whether they’re in government, in business or in NGOs.”

She then drew attention to the importance of monitoring and evaluation saying: “There is still not enough in the monitoring and evaluations area, and sharing of the practice. It’s a desperate need.” Talbot raised the question of where there is "the evidence for the efficacy of sport as a tool" and stated that "it’s so vital that capacity for monitoring and evaluation is built particularly amongst the NGOs that are delivering on the ground. Lack of evidence doesn’t mean to say it isn’t there. It’s because the data hasn’t been collected in many cases.”

The Forum was attended by more than 700 decision-makers and opinion-leaders from sport governance, politics, international organisations, NGOs and the private sector, as well as academics and top-level athletes from over 100 countries. The aim of the conference was to bring all these actors together to discuss how sport can contribute to peace processes and peace-building projects all around the world through fostering networking and partnerships.

Videos of all the sessions can be obtained from (Margaret Talbot participated in the fifth session, starting at 9 min.): http://www.peace-sport.org/en/forum/forum-2013/videos.html

By Vincent Peclet