Building an evidence base on Sport for Development for youth

• In Event: Developing life skills among youth: programmatic approaches and research evidence

Proposal

Sport is a powerful means by which to engage all children and youth in activities for personal and social development to help them achieve their full potential. Defined as any form of physical activity, sport provides children and youth from an early age with the opportunity to develop their physical abilities as well as logical thinking, personal autonomy, leadership and numerous other skills that build a foundation for lifelong learning. Sport also provides children and youth with the means with which to socialise, make friends and have fun. For children and youth in vulnerable contexts, sport can play an even greater role in their safety and learning. Evidence points to positive social and economic benefits of participating in sport, including its importance for good health, mental and social wellbeing (Eime et al. 2013; Coalter, 2015).

Recognising the power of sport, organisations at international, national and local levels are implementing sport initiatives as an instrument for youth development. Since the early 2000s there has been a large growth in sport for development (S4D) initiatives around the world, as well as in the number of practicing organisations. For example, in the first ten years of the sportanddev.org platform, over 180 projects and almost 450 organisations were registered (UNICEF, 2015). Beyond Sport, a global organisation from the United Kingdom, convenes a network of 2 690 organisations with over 2 800 projects in 154 countries – many of these targeting youth. UNICEF has also had a long history of promoting every child’s right to play and using S4D programming across more than 50 countries to advocate for youth issues, such as health and gender equity, and to address challenges faced by children and youth, including violence in and around schools.

Despite this rapid growth in action, the S4D sector has not been matched with a growth in research, including in monitoring and evaluation. The research has also failed to ‘synthesize the current knowledge base’ which hampers cross-national learning (Ibid). Unlocking the potential of sport initiatives to improve the lives of children and youth will require quality evidence. Analysis of the evidence on S4D points to existing gaps in quality research and data availability, including a lack of understanding of how S4D initiatives work (Whitley, et al, 2018), and a need to further develop the research methods used in S4D (Schulenkorf, Sherry and Rowe, 2016).

Moreover, S4D remains largely untapped as an instrument for improving the lives of children and youth, and achieving the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals for children. This research project aims to strengthen the evidence base on policies and practices for S4D, to harness the power of sport for transforming the lives of children and youth. The principle objective of this research is to understand how S4D initiatives can most effectively contribute to promoting positive outcomes in four specific areas: education, protection from violence, participation-empowerment, and social inclusion. This study will provide insights into the benefits of S4D in each of the four areas as well as to identify both limitations and best practices with the intention of further strengthening the evidence base for cross-national learning, reinvigorating the work on S4D and raising its importance as a key intervention to address the needs of children and youth.

To do so, this research consists of identifying, assessing, systematising and mapping existing evidence on S4D practices and policies through desk-based research. The preliminary literature selected was based on a search of five online search engines and databases, five academic journals on sports, the websites of numerous international and sub-national organizations involved in S4D. The literature search focused on the four aforementioned areas and additional appropriate keyword searches. The literature search was restricted to studies published in the last decade (2007-2018) and in English. An additional round of evidence gathering on S4D interventions will be done in French and Spanish to expand the global coverage of this study. Each article will be categorised based on different variables, including the quality of the evidence which focuses on four key criteria: conceptual coherence, methodological validity, scientific validity, and ethical considerations.

Preliminary analysis of select articles suggests that sport can positively impact the lives of children and youth, especially the most marginalised. For example, sport settings can provide opportunities to increase social capital, develop self-determination and agency, and life skills. Moreover, coaches can play a particularly central role in generating positive protection outcomes for children as they can instil positive behaviour. However, to achieve these positive outcomes, sport initiatives must build into their programme design and implementation specific strategies, such as empowerment. Additionally, recognising the importance of context into programme design is key. Adopting a multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder approach in programme design to address concerns at the community and system levels is necessary to impact the lives of children and youth. Evidence also suggests that special attention needs to be taken to ensure sport initiatives do not reinforce negative social-cultural attitudes and norms, or present a risk factor to the well-being of children and youth. Safeguarding children, especially the most vulnerable in and around sport initiatives, is of great importance.

Additional evidence from two supplementary questionnaires of sport programmes around the world and UNICEF stakeholders working on sport initiatives will be included in the analysis. The questionnaires are designed to gather preliminary evidence not available through the desk-based research. The questions are formulated to draw findings regarding the different experiences of the S4D initiatives, as well as understand respondents’ views and perceptions regarding the design, delivery and their impact. Based on the analysis, successful and promising S4D initiatives will be selected to understand how they contribute to achieving outcomes education, protection from violence, participation-empowerment, and social inclusion.

Building the evidence base on S4D will be key in harnessing the power of sport as a tool to address the well-being and educational needs of the 1.2 billion youth which make up the largest population cohort and in particular the over 200 million adolescents remaining out-of-school.

Authors

• Juliana Zapata, UNICEF-Office of Research

• Nadia Jessop, UNICEF-Office of Research