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Paris, July 26 (HS). On the eve of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games 2024 in Paris, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) held an unprecedented summit in the interest of sports, youth and sustainable development. Heads of state and government and heads of international organizations received five global commitments and promises of major investments from the IOC, FIFA, private and public entities.
The first Sport for Sustainable Development summit, the largest meeting ever held on the topic, took place on Thursday on the eve of Paris 2024. On the occasion, France and the IOC wanted to launch an unprecedented movement to accelerate sport's contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
At the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron and IOC President Thomas Bach, the summit gathered 500 participants, including heads of state and government, heads of international organisations and public banks, members of the Olympic Movement, socially committed athletes and representatives of civil society.
At the political level, the Paris Agreement commitments to sport and sustainable development received the support of more than 60 heads of state and government and heads of international organisations, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the IOC said in a release on Thursday, calling on participants to join the future summit in September.
The IOC, through its President Thomas Bach, has announced a 10% increase (USD 650 million for 2025-2028) in its budget dedicated to Olympic Solidarity. This will support athletes and sports development programmes around the world, and also includes an increase in the budget to support National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to actively contribute to the IOC’s strategy to strengthen the role of sport as a key enabler for the UN SDGs.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced an ambitious programme to install 1,000 sustainable football pitches in schools in support of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
The initiative is part of FIFA's Football for Schools programme, which aims to make football more accessible to boys and girls and strengthen young people's life skills through football. FIFA reinvests a large portion of the revenue generated from its major competitions into football development.
Over the period from 2016 to 2026, US$5 billion will be invested in the sustainable development of football everywhere and for all across FIFA's 211 Member States through the FIFA Forward programme. This represents a strong global commitment to youth and the future.
NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announced that the NBA will work with the French Development Agency (AFD) and other partners around the world to build 1,000 basketball courts in Africa over the next decade.
The initiative is part of the league's efforts to create more spaces for young people to learn and play basketball, and demonstrates its commitment to using the transformative power of basketball to contribute to Africa's sports ecosystem and socio-economic development.
It aims to make the Sustainable Development Summit a recurring event at major sporting events.
On the financial front, the summit resulted in several organizations promising massive investments, with Public Development Banks and other institutions uniting in sustainable development through the Sports Coalition of the Finance in Common movement, committing to invest USD 10 billion.