Sport-for-development: from UNESCO’s universal language to application. Case study of French NGOs

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare UNESCO’s international recommendations at world conferences on sport and education held over the past 40 years with NGO action in the field. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the article highlights the emergence of a universal language for sport, based on a cultural and conceptual intermix, which defines major goals established on a set of beliefs. By studying two active French associations in this field, Secours Populaire Français and Play International, it likewise demonstrates how confrontation with the different realities contributes to the development of approaches, at times in opposition to major principles, which are aimed at making sport a means to meet social challenges by making it accessible.

Keywords:

• Sport
• values
• UNESCO
• NGO
• development
• insertion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The first conference was held in Paris in 1976. It was followed by MINEPS II in Moscow in 1988, MINEPS III in Punta del Este in 1999, MINEPS IV in Athens in 2004 and MINEPS V in Berlin in 2013. Now a quadrennial event, the last MINEPS Conference was held in Kazan in 2017.

2 Thematic analysis was used in line with its two functions of identification and documentation (Paillé and Muchielli 2016). The first was used to identify all the relevant themes related to the research question, while the second used these themes to understand the internal structure of the content, in order to then identify its continuities, variables and differences/links between the interviews. This allowed a comparison of the meaning players give to their work in sport-for-development.