Sport for Social Inclusion and Development

ICSSPE Vice President Maria Dinold represented ICSSPE at a MINEPS VI follow-up event focusing on social inclusion and development.  

Within the framework of the Kazan Action Plan (2017) the key goal of the event – promoted by Paolo Bertaccini, Italy, and organised with support of UNESCO and the Italian government at the Catholic University in Milan, Italy – was to strengthen interaction and cooperation between specialised knowledge groups and policy makers to support evidence-based policies and interventions which use sport for social inclusion and development.

This initiative raised the interest of representatives from public institutions, as well as NGOs and project leaders from around the world, who had been invited to attend this three day event. The diversity of contributions addressing topics with respect to social inclusion and development through sport was impressive and representative. As the languages were English and Spanish, the represented countries reached from Cuba to Nepal and from Denmark to South Africa.

One of the intended outcomes was an overview of approaches, models, methodologies and tools for impact measurement in the field. Selected contributions with this intention were delivered by, for example, Fred Coalter, who discussed critical success factors and key elements of social inclusion through sport. In a similar framework, an introduction for private-public project methodologies was provided by Colin Higgs, who emphasised the importance of finding out clear objectives of a programme and the evaluation of the given situation before raising expectations.

Other participants provided case-study presentations as part of organised round tables.

The expected follow up outcome is an international informal and permanent working group in the framework of a global forum dedicated to promoting interventions in the field of social inclusion and development through sport, by means of public-private partnerships, impact measurement methodologies and capacity building.