Making Sport a development option
A close analysis of governance in St. Vincent and the Grenadines would inevitably leave one almost totally confused. There is so much contradiction that one cannot help but ponder on the thinking that leads to what obtains as our current reality.
In the recent past, much has been made of St. Vincent and the Grenadines being elected to the United Nations Security Council. Interestingly, before the Vincentian populace was engaged to facilitate an understanding of the UN Security Council, its role in international affairs and the significance of SVG seeking a seat, even if only for a short period of time, the government vigorously pursued the seat.
In the end, after having been elected to the Security Council, the only thing the administration has been able to do is boast of SVG being the small nation ever to achieve this milestone.
A recent attempt by one former minister of government to explain the benefits to be derived from being elected to a seat on the UN Security Council turned out to be a colossal and embarrassing flop.
We have been members of the United Nations for decades and yet, the reality reveals a rather embarrassing display of adherence to the activities of the organization.
Over the past few years, the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines has been boasting of its contribution to sport. The reality, however, is that the current administration has done nothing more than pay lip service to sport and has displayed an abysmally embarrassing lack of understanding of sport, its value to the human condition and its pivotal role in national development.
Historiography
The insistence by some that the current government reflects decadence more than anything else is understandable.
There was a time when the international donor agencies facilitating development assistance vehemently rejected any inclusion of sport in any form in projects submitted for consideration. Local non-governmental organisations kept sporting institutions at bay, informing them that sport had no place in community development and by extension, in national development.
Governments were insistent, for the most part, that sport was frivolity and that the best option was to provide recreational spaces for the population from time to time and more so in constituencies deemed important to garnering votes in successive general elections.
Of course, successful athletes and teams were paraded across the national landscape and some even received plots of land and national honours. However, there was no attempt at seizing the initiative and locating sport in the broader national development matrix.
One can therefore understand the backward thinking that still impacts the Vincentian government in respect of sport. It is the legacy of a bitter conquest and colonialism. Neo-colonialism changed nothing and nether has the more recent claim of constructing a post-colonial, post-modern society. The best and most recent example of this backwardness is the naming of the synthetic track and Diamond after Vincent Beache.
Not surprisingly, therefore, the Vincentian government constructs facilities without the engagement of national sports associations and reveal their abominable ignorance of the changing role of sport in national development without remorse. The best example of this latter stance is the response to the president of the international football federation (FIFA, Gianni Infantino, who made an important developmental offer to the government only to find it soundly rebuffed. Not just ignored but almoSt. Vehemently rebuffed.
The level of ignorance displayed still reverberates, not just amongSt. Vincentian footballers and enthusiasts but amongst all sportspeople in the nation and its Diaspora.
The UN and Sport
Global changes have forced people everywhere to acknowledge the importance of sport in facilitating the human condition.
UN Special Advisor
In 2001, In 2001, Kofi Annan, at the time Secretary-General of the United Nations, gave greater international recognition to the importance of sport in global development by appointing Adolf Ogi, former President of the Swiss Confederation, as the first ‘Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace’.
The UN indicated that the initiative was undertaken “in order to more systematically and coherently encourage the use of sport as a means to attain health, education, development and peace objectives”.
The aforementioned move on the part of the UN Secretary-General has not had any impact on the way in which the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, now eagerly touting the value of having a seat on the UN Security Council, viewed sport and its role in national development.
International Year of Sport & PE
Two years later, in 2003, the United Nations General Assembly in resolution 58/5 of 3 November 2003, entitled ‘Sport as a means to promote education, health, development and peace’, declared 2005 as the International Year of Sport and Physical Education (IYSPE).
According to the UN, “IYSPE 2005 was declared by IYSPE 2005 strived to achieve a better understanding of the value of sport and physical education for human development and a more systematic use of sport in development programmes.
“It aimed to facilitate better knowledge-sharing among various key stakeholders, to raise general awareness as well as to create the right conditions for the implementation of new, and the strengthening of existing, sport-based development programmes and projects”.
As expected, the year, 2005, came and went by. It literally passed us by because it was an elections year and nothing could be of greater significance than getting re-elected. Embarrassingly, the only mention of IYSPE in St. Vincent and the Grenadines came in one of our Columns in this newspaper. It was as though no minister of our government and none of our officials at our Mission to the UN, ever heard of or took seriously the momentous decision of the very United Nations of which we claim to be a proud and active member.
One, therefore, wonders who are we fooling?
We, as a nation that claims to be building a consultative democracy for development, only seem to be anxious to accept those aspects of the work and activities of the UN that allow for some people here to thump their chests.
Sport and the MDGs
The UN has found itself appreciating the growing importance of sport in bringing people together and thereby facilitating genuine development, as good as any other aspect of human society. Thus we found Annan’s successor at the UN, Ban Ki Moon, declaring, “Sport is increasingly recognized as an important tool in helping the United Nations achieve its objectives, in particular, the Millennium Development Goals. By including sport in development and peace programmes in a more systematic way, the United Nations can make full use of this cost-efficient tool to help us create a better world.”
Therefore we have seen the “UN programmes, funds and specialised agencies have increasingly recognized and harnessed the power of sport to achieve their objectives, particularly the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000”.
Wilfried Lemke, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace following the tenure of Ogi, declared, “Sport has a crucial role to play in the efforts of the United Nations to improve the lives of people around the world. Sport builds bridges between individuals and across communities, providing a fertile ground for sowing the seeds of development and peace”.
It does not appear that the foregoing has impacted, in any way the Vincentian government’s approach to sport. This aspect of Vincentian society is yet to receive the attention the rest of the world and particularly the UN, think it deserves in national and international development.
The agency, Sport for Development and Peace Working Group, has acknowledged that sport benefits “individual development, health promotion and disease prevention, promotion of gender equality, social integration and the development of social capital, peacebuilding and conflict prevention/resolution, post-disaster/trauma relief and normalisation of life, economic development, communication and social mobilisation”.
We, therefore, find that the “United Nations has recognised it as an ‘enabler of development’ in Agenda 2030, the plan of action that includes the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)”.
Here at home, we are so anxious to gloat over the seat on the UN Security Council that we continue to ignore the increasing global location of sport in the broader scheme of things.
We have a leadership that continues to boast of being able to see the ‘bigger picture’ yet we have overlooked the immeasurable contributions that sport can make to nation-building and even now, continue to do so.
The Vincentian choice in 2021
The Sport for Development and Peace Working Group and the UN itself have come to the recognition that while sport has been inextricably linked to the SDGs, it alone will not be able to achieve all of them.
For us here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, however, getting it right in respect of at the very least, acknowledging the important role that sport can and must play in building our nation, is a critical point of departure.
Given the history of this country, sporting organisations and individual who understand sport and its immense benefits, cannot afford to wait on the government to effect change.
National sports associations must come together and engage in collective education, create innovative programmes and embark on programmes all aimed at allowing sport to positively impact our parents and children, our schools and communities. Ultimately, they will positively impact all of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
2021 is an important year for all of us. We are the ones to make the all-important choices with respect to what we make of our nation.
Let us not allow the government to continue to ignore global developments in respect of the location of sport in national development.
Let us together, in and through sport, effect meaningful change in Vincentian society.
It must begin with us.
Successive generations will not only benefit from our initiatives but they will ensure that the process is enhanced for those that will come after them.
