We join Global agencies to measure sports’ contribution to the SDG’s

As the technical advisor to the Commonwealth Secretariat on this international effort to measure the contribution of sport to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), last month the inFocus team joined experts from leading inter-governmental, civil society and sports organisations at an  inaugural open-ended working group meeting, hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.

More than 50 international organisations and member state representatives participated in the working group, including officials from UNESCO, the World Health Organisation, UNDESA, International Olympic Committee, International Paralympic Committee and Commonwealth Games Federation.

Our work with the Secretariat has been spearheaded by Oliver Dudfield (Head of Sport for Development and Peace, at the Commonwealth). Leading up to this meeting, the inFocus team took up the challenge of linking national sports policy development to the United Nations 2030 Agenda. inFocus CEO Dr Damian Hatton, and Senior Consultants on the project Ben Sanders and Dr Iain Lindsey (Associate Professor in Sport Policy and Development at Durham University), led discussions focused on reviewing a draft model indicator framework and an associated implementation toolkit, and assessing the overall feasibility of utilising common international data sets on sport and development, in practice. 

The work was well received and findings from the meeting will now be used to further develop and test the model indicators and the toolkit, during the next phase of the project. Nominations are also underway for a project steering group that will provide strategic direction over the next 5-10 year period for the initiative and support the production, review and validation of future project outputs.

For more information on our work measuring the contribution of sport towards the SDGs, contact Dr Damian Hatton (damian@impactinfocus.com).