In this blog, the Sport for Development Coalition’s Head of Impact and Engagement Amy Caterson, and Head of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs Simon Lansley, look ahead to a vital year for sport for sustainable development, and to the collective action of Coalition supporters in helping to build a healthier, more equitable future for all.
The next 12 months represents a critical year for sport, society and our planet. With an Olympics, Paralympics and UK General Election expected to take place during 2024, there will be plenty of rhetoric about the need for cost-effective solutions in a cost-of-living crisis; but what we really need next are concrete steps and action.
Global conflicts and the climate crisis continue to dominate the headlines, with the United Nations recently reporting that the world is only 15% towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals at their halfway stage.
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So how can we in the UK collectively help to accelerate action, and take responsibility for playing our part in achieving these goals?
At the Sport for Development Coalition, a growing network of charities and organisations using sport and physical activity to address health and societal inequalities, our aim is to come together and work with policy-makers around key priorities – not only for the next four-year cycle of Government, but for the next generation who (let's be frank about it) we are currently failing.
At the Coalition, we believe the challenges we are facing as a society are too important to become just another political football.
In its recent report 'Two Nations: The State of Poverty in the UK' the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) think tank argued the most disadvantaged are no better off than they were 15 years ago. It highlights stagnant wages, family breakdown, poor housing, crime, mental health, and other issues, adding: “For too many Britain is broken and the gap between the haves and have-nots is in danger of becoming a chasm.”
However, the report also adds that while the challenges Britain faces are huge, they are “not insurmountable” – and this is where Coalition supporters stand ready to play their part.
Membership of the Coalition has doubled over the last two years, during which time supporters have come together to co-design the ‘Open Goal’ shared advocacy framework (below) which seeks to highlight how the 400-plus charities, governing bodies and networks across the Coalition are intentionally using sport and physical activity to address key issues like crime, unemployment, health, social cohesion and climate justice. Every day, in communities across the UK facing the greatest disadvantage and deprivation, these organisations are initiating, leading and collectively supporting thousands of projects and programmes tackling key health and societal inequalities – often with nothing more than a few volunteers, a bag of balls, and bucketloads of dedication and passion for their community.
Thanks to the multiple returns on investment that each project delivers, it is these locally trusted organisations that are best-placed to help build and deliver the structural and social change that our society is so desperately in need of.
That’s why the Coalition stands squarely alongside fellow members of the National Sector Partners Group in building the evidence base to demonstrate the value of sport, physical activity and recreation to the nation’s health, productivity and economy, and is proud to be a Systems Partner of Sport England’s 'Uniting The Movement' strategy which seeks to entrench physical activity irreversibly into the national psyche. Similar to the long-term strategy which brought about smoking cessation from the 1980s onwards, Uniting The Movement is a 10-year ambition to unlock the potential of physical activity and recreation, and maximise its contribution to society.
Throughout early 2024, the Coalition will publish and undertake a series of activities and outputs which will demonstrate our collective commitment to meeting this challenge head on. In late January, several leaders from the network will convene in person as the build-up begins in earnest to two important dates: firstly, 6th April which marks the UN’s International Day of Sport for Development & Peace, and the anniversary of the #OpenGoal framework. Secondly, the date of the likely 2024 General Election, which while yet to be decided could potentially be as early as May. Through its Working Groups the Coalition and national sector partners will highlight our collective asks, offers and recommendations to policy-makers within each of the political parties so that there can be no doubt, sport and physical activity is ready to maximise its contribution to building a more equitable, sustainable and fairer future for all.
