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UN - IOC Forum
24 May 2010
The President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Jacques Rogge, opened the first joint forum between the IOC and the United Nations (UN) at The Olympic Museum in Lausanne. The event, titled “The Importance of Partnership”, brings together sporting officials and UN representatives in order to leverage the IOC’s recently obtained UN observer status and strengthen cooperation in the field of development through sport.
Speaking at the opening session after Wilfried Lemke, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General on Sport for Development and Peace, and Mario Pescante, IOC Vice-President and Permanent Representative of the IOC to the UN, President Rogge said: “The IOC and the Olympic Movement have a social responsibility to bring sport and its values to all fields of society. If sport on its own cannot drive this agenda, it can however exchange and partner with those whose responsibility and expertise is to make peace and drive national development, such as the UN.”
“The IOC and the UN have enjoyed very strong ties for many decades”, Rogge continued. “In recognition of the role sport can play in contributing to a better world, the IOC was granted observer status by the UN General Assembly last year. The aim of this Forum is to generate further action on the ground that contributes to the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals. We cannot change the world but we believe that, through sport, we can make better citizens”, he concluded.
Speaking on behalf of the UN, Wilfried Lemke said: “This forum is so important, in that it not only serves as a venue for discussing approaches to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, it is also an example of us realising Goal number 8, which emphasises the creation of global partnerships. Through collaboration and partnerships between the UN System and the IOC, we can use sport to play a crucial role in achieving each of these important goals.”
Over two days, the Forum looked at the following areas:
- What (else) sport can do to support the Millennium Development Goals
- Targeting youth in development
- Gender equality
- Healthy lifestyle and promotion
- Peace-building and humanitarian assistance and actions.
- The way forward
The Forum closed with 19 recommendations on how to maximise the impact of various activities in the field of development through sport.
Read the full text of the recommendations here.
19 Recommendations
The participants, composed of the Olympic family, the UN system, the International Paralympic Committee, NGOs and academic experts, stressed the need to “influence national governments” to embed sport in their development policies “by emphasising its enormous power as an indispensable tool for peace and development”. The Forum also advised to “avoid the creation of parallel structures” among the different players and avoid duplicating activities. The “creation of a web-based information-sharing network for sport in peace and development” could be an important tool to avoid an overlap of activities and to share best practice. Whilst the IOC’s contribution to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was recognised, full IOC participation in the upcoming UN Summit on the MDGs in September 2010 was recommended.
About the UN Millennium Development Goals
The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanised unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/bkgd.shtml