In Sep­tem­ber 2015, the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly adopt­ed 17 Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) for the pe­ri­od 2015-2030. These goals ad­dress so­cial, eco­nom­ic, and eco­log­i­cal sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment is­sues to erad­i­cate pover­ty and po­si­tion the world’s de­vel­op­ment agen­da on a growth path.

Ac­cord­ing to the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at (2015), three of these SDGs pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for sport to play a cru­cial role in achiev­ing the 2030 de­vel­op­ment agen­da. https://www.sportand­dev.org/en/learn-more/sport-and-sus­tain­able-de­vel­op­ment-goals/what-sports-role-ad­dress­ing-sus­tain­able

SDG 3: En­sure Healthy Lives and Pro­mote Well be­ing for All, at all Ages

Health ben­e­fits of sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty: The lev­els of phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty are in­creas­ing glob­al­ly (31 per cent in­ac­tiv­i­ty rate [WHO, 2022].) Phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty is the fourth lead­ing risk fac­tor for glob­al mor­tal­i­ty (six per cent of deaths glob­al­ly, [Na­tion­al In­sti­tutes of Health].) Par­tic­i­pa­tion in sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty re­duces the risks of heart dis­ease, stroke, di­a­betes and oth­er non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases [NCDs], [Dhuli, et.al. 2022].

Eco­nom­ic im­pact of phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty: It is es­ti­mat­ed that phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty will cost In­dia US$7.5 bil­lion and the UK US$26 bil­lion by 2030 if ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures are not tak­en. Such cal­cu­la­tions are like­ly to un­der­es­ti­mate the true costs as they fo­cus main­ly on chron­ic dis­eases and do not in­clude, for ex­am­ple, men­tal health.

SDG 4: En­sure Ac­ces­si­ble and Fair Qual­i­ty Ed­u­ca­tion and Pro­mote Life­long Learn­ing Op­por­tu­ni­ties for All

The right to par­tic­i­pate in qual­i­ty sport, phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty and phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion: Sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty are en­shrined as a fun­da­men­tal right in the In­ter­na­tion­al Char­ter of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport. High-qual­i­ty phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion is crit­i­cal to chil­dren’s phys­i­cal lit­er­a­cy, phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, and over­all well-be­ing.

Im­proved ed­u­ca­tion out­comes: Phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion is com­pul­so­ry in schools in 97 per cent of coun­tries; how­ev­er, it has a low­er sta­tus than aca­d­e­m­ic sub­jects in more than half of them. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, the same can be said es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to fe­males. These prac­tices con­tra­dict re­search ev­i­dence show­ing that or­gan­ised sports ac­tiv­i­ties and phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion pos­i­tive­ly im­pact learn­ers, in­clud­ing el­e­vat­ed aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance.

En­gag­ing dis­en­fran­chised learn­ers: Sport projects can pro­vide ed­u­ca­tion for peo­ple with­out ac­cess to for­mal ed­u­ca­tion and those who do not per­form well.

Pri­ori­tis­ing holis­tic ed­u­ca­tion: SDG 4 seeks to recog­nise phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty as cen­tral to any de­f­i­n­i­tion of holis­tic and com­pre­hen­sive ed­u­ca­tion.

SDG 5: Achieve Gen­der Equal­i­ty and Em­pow­er all Women and Girls

The role of sport in so­ci­ety: Sport pro­grams have the po­ten­tial to pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty. They can do this by ad­dress­ing some of its own struc­tur­al in­equal­i­ties, such as pro­fes­sion­al fe­male ath­letes be­ing paid less than men, ac­cess to fa­cil­i­ties, and women’s sport re­ceiv­ing less me­dia cov­er­age.

Sport as a safe space to ad­dress gen­der is­sues: En­gag­ing women and girls in sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress sev­er­al crit­i­cal pub­lic health is­sues af­fect­ing women such as sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health, and gen­der-based vi­o­lence. These is­sues must al­so form part of the holis­tic de­vel­op­ment pro­grams for boys and young men.

Pro­mot­ing fe­male lead­er­ship: Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies [Nibs] have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­mote fe­male lead­er­ship on and off the field at all lev­els. These re­spon­si­bil­i­ties are en­shrined in the Brighton De­c­la­ra­tion on Women and Sport 1994, the Brighton Plus Helsin­ki 2014 De­c­la­ra­tion on Women and Sport, and the Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing [MOU] be­tween the In­ter­na­tion­al Work­ing Group [IWG] on Women and Sport and UN Women, Ju­ly 2026. Trinidad and To­ba­go is a sig­na­to­ry to the Brighton De­c­la­ra­tion 1994.

Key sport stake­hold­ers- Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, SPORTT, and Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies [NG­BS] must there­fore pri­ori­tise:

Mon­i­tor­ing and Eval­u­a­tion: En­sure that all elite sport and sport-for-all in­vest­ment eval­u­a­tions are aligned with glob­al frame­works such as WHO’s Glob­al Ac­tion Plan on Phys­i­cal Ac­tiv­i­ty (GAP­PA), UN­ESCO’s Fit for Life ini­tia­tive and the Brighton Plus Helsin­ki 2014 De­c­la­ra­tion on Women and Sport.

Em­pir­i­cal Health and Da­ta: Col­lect da­ta on key health in­di­ca­tors (eg, obe­si­ty to en­able in­ter­ven­tions to re­duce lifestyle-re­lat­ed NCD risk fac­tors in ado­les­cents, young adults, etc.)

Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al Ac­count­abil­i­ty: Es­tab­lish and mon­i­tor gen­der di­ver­si­ty tar­gets in gov­er­nance struc­tures and youth de­vel­op­ment path­ways across all Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies in keep­ing with the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Brighton Plus Helsin­ki 2014 De­c­la­ra­tion on Women and Sport.

NB: an ad­di­tion to last week’s col­umn T&T Sports Achieve­ment, Roger Gib­bon (two gold 1966 Com­mon­wealth Games, three Pan Am gold 1963, 1967, two CAC gold 1966, bronze World Cham­pi­onships 1967.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.