Dive Brief:
- The International Olympic Committee and 2024 Olympic host France held a summit for the Olympic community and governments to discuss how sports can help support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony.
- The summit on Thursday concluded with an agreement consisting of 10 commitments from participants in five different thematic areas: education and employment; health and nutrition; equality and inclusion; finance and impact measurement; and sustainability and legacy, the IOC and France announced in a release.
- The summit also yielded financial commitments to support the SDGs, with public development banks and other member institutions of the Sustainable Finance through Sport coalition committing to invest $10 billion in “community-based, inclusive and sustainable” sports infrastructure by the end of the decade, the deadline for the UN’s SDGs, per the release.
Dive Insight:
To support the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, the summit also announced commitments from the French Development Agency to invest 500 million euros ($541.2 million) by the end of the decade in sport for sustainable development. Additionally, institutions will have the first opportunity to contribute to an impact fund for development through sport beginning at the Group of Seven Ministerial Meeting on Sport for Development Oct. 3 and the Finance in Common Summit in South Africa in early 2025.
IOC President Thomas Bach said in a speech that the committee is looking to “strengthen the role of sport as an important enabler” of the SDGs. Bach said the combined commitments address 11 of the 17 SDGs, which include eliminating poverty and hunger, climate action and gender equality. The creation of the Finance in Common impact fund was a result of a commitment to help finance the commitments to sports and sustainable development and research the impact of sports on the SDGs.
The summit also yielded a commitment to reduce the carbon footprint of sports and sporting events and align with the Paris Agreement. To that end, Bach said the IOC is reducing its direct and indirect emissions 30% by the end of this year, and is on track to reduce its emissions 50% by 2030, aligned with the Paris Agreement.
The organizing committee for the 2024 Paris Olympics is on track to have the games emit 50% less carbon compared to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — which took place in 2021 — according to Bach.
"Sport, a driver of solidarity and self-betterment, must allow us to move forward to meet so many of our common challenges, and in particular to invest in our next generations of athletes,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a release. “Our goal is to win, as a team, this game against fate, and for future generations.”
To address education and employment, the IOC has a goal to make quality sports and physical education accessible to students worldwide and use sports to promote employability and skill acquisition.
The summit also secured commitments from:
- the IOC to increase the Olympic solidarity budget 10%;
- the chair of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic committee to invest $160 million in youth parks over the next four years;
- the Federation Internationale de Football Association to install 1,000 sustainable soccer pitches;
- and the National Basketball Association and the French Development agency plan to build 1,000 basketball courts in Africa in the next decade.
The IOC also hopes the Sport for Development Summit becomes a recurring event at major sporting events, per the committee's statement.
