Sport as a Means to Promote Education, Health, Development and Peace

Invites Member States, the organizations of the United Nations system, including its peacekeeping missions, special political missions and integrated peacebuilding missions, sport-related organizations, federations and associations, athletes, the media, civil society, academia and the private sector to collaborate with the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace to promote greater awareness and action to foster peace and accelerate the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals through sport-based initiatives and promote the integration of sport for development and peace in the development agenda, by working along the following principles adapted from the United Nations Action Plan on Sport for Development and Peace, contained in the report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session:¹⁰

Encourages Member States to provide institutional structures, appropriate quality standards, policies and competencies and promote academic research and expertise in the field to enable ongoing training, capacity-building and education of physical education teachers, coaches and community leaders in sport for development and peace programmes;

Invites Member States and international sport organizations to continue to assist developing countries, in particular the least developed countries, in their capacity-building efforts in sport and physical education, by providing national experiences and best practices, as well as financial, technical and logistic resources for the development of sport programmes;

Encourages the stakeholders referred to in paragraph 1 above to emphasize and advance the use of sport as a vehicle to foster development and strengthen education, including physical education, for children and young persons, prevent disease and promote health, including the prevention of drug abuse, realize gender equality and empower girls and women, foster the inclusion and well-being of persons with disabilities and facilitate social inclusion, conflict prevention and peacebuilding;

Encourages the stakeholders, and in particular the organizers of mass sport events, to use and leverage such events to promote and support sport for development and peace initiatives and to strengthen existing and build new partnerships, coordinate common strategies, policies and programmes and increase coherence and synergies, while raising awareness at the local, national, regional and global levels;

Encourages Member States to adopt best practices and means to promote the practice of sport and physical activities among all members of society, and in this regard welcomes initiatives to adopt dedicated health, youth and sport days, including specialized sport days, at the national and local levels, as a means to promote physical and mental health and cultivate a sport culture in society;

Encourages Member States that have not yet done so to designate a focal point for sport for development and peace within their governments and provide updates to the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace on institutional, policy and programme-related developments;

Urges Member States that have not yet done so to consider signing, ratifying, acceding to and implementing the Convention on the Rights of the ChildError: Reference source not found and the Optional Protocols thereto,¹¹ the Convention on the Rights of Persons with DisabilitiesError: Reference source not found and the International Convention against Doping in Sport;Error: Reference source not found

Encourages Member States, in particular those committed to promoting sport as a tool for development and peace, and other stakeholders, such as international sports federations, organizers of global mass sports events, sports clubs and leagues, foundations and the private sector, especially businesses involved in the sports sector, to provide voluntary contributions to the Trust Fund for Sport for Development and Peace and to enter into innovative partnerships with the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace, which is funded exclusively through voluntary contributions, in order to sustain the mandate of the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace, ensure the continuous activities of the Office, including its provision of secretariat services to the Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group, and provide project implementation funding for the Office and the United Nations system at large;

Invites Member States and other relevant stakeholders, as observers, to join and support the Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group, so as to further strengthen its work on all envisaged themes, including the pending thematic working group on sport and health;

Encourages Member States to join and participate in the Group of Friends of Sport for Development and Peace, an informal group of permanent missions to the United Nations in New York and Geneva serving as a platform to promote dialogue and facilitate and encourage the integration of sport to support the achievement of the United Nations goals and objectives;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its seventy-first session on the implementation of the present resolution, including on specific initiatives aimed at ensuring more effective implementation of the Olympic Truce and progress made by Member States and the United Nations system, including activities and the functioning of the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace and the Trust Fund for Sport for Development and Peace, as well as other relevant stakeholders, towards the implementation of the United Nations Action Plan on Sport for Development and Peace and the Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group policy recommendations, and to provide a review of the contribution of sport to the promotion of the post-2015 development agenda and present an updated action plan on sport for development and peace;